


The Root of it all

by Lizburns



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, F/F, Grief, Hubris, Kidnapping, Loss, Love, Root centric, Root in Rampage Mode, Slow Burn, Torture, yes there will be a sex scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-17 15:47:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4672325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizburns/pseuds/Lizburns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If Shaw was ever angered, Root was behind the rage, and sometimes that was enough."</p><p>Root abandons her life with Team Machine to find Shaw. Little does she know, she's losing herself along the way. </p><p>Post "If, Then, Else."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Always From Afar

Root wonders and worries about a lot of things. How a scene might play out if she says this or does that. The reaction that will ensue. Sometimes she regards the probable outcome the Machine buzzes in her head, and other times she leaves it to an instinct outside of artificial intelligence. The wrenching in the pit of her stomach says more than numbers and figures.

It's a tool Root uses to prepare. A dozen variant simulations enact in her imagination, and the one that actually preforms in the real world comes to no surprise because Root has already expected that much. She's already anticipated your blow, whether it's a closed fist or a choice selection of words, Root dodges and sends something unexpected and deadly your way. No one ever sees her coming.

Her performances are painstaking and she's egotistical enough to wish an audience present for when she unveils her next masterpiece. It's more than a thrill for Root and almost a pleasure. It's the foreplay that precedes the grand finale.

Boldness only goes a long way before it's stretched too thin and snaps.

Now here Root stands in her least triumphant moment and she wonders what went wrong. A few things she thought nearly impossible. Checking and rechecking the numbers in disbelief, which was less likelier to happen; Shaw kissing her or Shaw dying. Both scenarios she had planned for, but when they finally came to fruition, for once Root was truly blind sighted.

She imagined kissing Sameen before plenty of times. It was a reoccurring thought since the first day they had met. Root, under the guise of Veronica Sinclair in that meager hotel room, Shaw tied to a chair, silent and still from the taser's aftershock. Shaw's defiant response to the daunting hot iron hovering ever so close to her face made Root tingle inside. Disappointed that she was forced to depart before the fun had even started, Root subsided herself with the belief that this wouldn't be the last she would see of Agent Shaw. Root could hardly contain her excitement, similar to the joy of the day she was chosen to be the analogue interface, when the Machine requested Sameen Shaw's assistance in a plot yet to be completely unfolded.

Root thrived on Shaw's immediate displeasure in her company and relished any moment to rattle this agent's nerves. Shaw was a sociopath with a short fuse and a spilling temper, Root was reminded of this quite frequently. Still, it never stopped Root from wriggling in her much coveted place underneath Shaw's skin. Root would never admit, sometimes not even to herself, when Shaw's dark brown eyes scowled with fury, after a well placed innuendo or come on, after an _accidental_ brush of her hand, how it filled Root with impossible desires.

They would grow as surely as time goes on.

It was hard to resist the temptation after so many times of being tempted. To Root, Shaw was as beautiful as she was deadly, sharper than the blade Shaw once merrily pressed to her throat, impacting her harder than any blow ever made with a fist. These qualities Root found difficult to ignore, especially in the presence of the very woman that brought her to such wishful thinking.

Shaw in action was a glorious sight to witness, powerful and driven like an unstoppable force. Root would steel and bite her lip, worried that she might lustfully lunge at this woman. After the pair successfully managed to sabotage a warehouse of Samaritan servers, Root fought the urge to grab Shaw by the lapels and pull her in right then and there.

In the many hotel rooms they had shared over the course of their work, some cozier than others, some so stifling Root could feel the tension hot and heavy in the air. Shaw would opt to sleep in the bathtub sooner than share a bed with Root, and of course Root didn't mind the extra space. She stretched her long legs at night and smiled against the pillow knowing Shaw would suffer a stiff neck in the morning for her own stubbornness. Near the twelfth time, Shaw did finally give an inch that felt much like a mile to Root. Maybe it was the confined space of the only motel room available, maybe it was the small walk in shower in place instead of a bathtub, maybe it was something else entirely. Either way, Root found it difficult to sleep that night with Shaw lying so close. She wondered what would happen if she turned to hold Shaw by the waist, nuzzle her nose into the back of Shaw's neck and breathe in the scent of her skin always so far from reach. She wondered if Shaw would make good of her promise to hurt Root if she so much as layed a finger on her, not that Root would mind that kind of attention too. Root thought about the staggeringly low probability Shaw would lean into her instead, that microscopic possibility that Root would melt instead of burn.

Shaw was a scary woman indeed, but her ability to intimidate fell just short of Root. She could terrify all she wanted, with words or a loaded gun, with a sharp knife or the heel of a stiletto, Root would welcome these threats, empty or otherwise, as any method of contact would be savored. Few words could articulate the level of satisfaction and reward to be the cause of the only emotion Shaw seemed to have. If Shaw was ever angered, Root was behind the rage, and sometimes that was enough.

Root fears only a handful of things. Her own death is not one of them.

There's always a tipping point. Preservation came close to spilling over the edge. Root escapes the confines of her prison in the library to play knight in shining armor to Shaw and Finch. She abhors that atrocious phrase, but it seemed to be the most appropriate while picking the lock on her ankle bracelet and running to the rescue.

Something goes wrong though.

Shot and captured, at the mercy of Control and her many volatile needles. But then again, she likes this sort of thing.

When she does get away, when she first sets foot back at headquarters, Shaw is already making a bee line for her. Root feels as unkempt as she looks, barely able to stand and Shaw is squeezing the injection sites on her arms and shaking Root silly. Shaw's angry, which comes to no surprise, and her anger is for Root, which is also nothing new. With an obvious snarl in her tone, she's calling Root these few choice names that all inevitably have the same meaning. What a reckless and stupid thing she's done suffice to say. Somewhere in there, Root's got a one liner bubbling it's way to the surface, and she's this close... and then she notices how differently Shaw is looking at her now. It's probably the longest eye contact this sociopath has ever granted her. There's something else wild and different in those dark eyes and Root realizes the concern behind them masquerading as scorn. This woman's way of admitting without admitting, and a part of Root is touched.

The way Root smiles at Shaw, lively with a hint of trepidation, it's the kind of grin that says, “Who do you think you're fooling?”, and it only makes Shaw's grip all the more painful. It's then that Root is aware of the small distance between them, and it's then that Root thinks Shaw might let her close the gap for once in her miserable existence without repercussion. In an instant, Root wonders what Shaw's already radiantly warm body would feel like against her own, the soft heated skin in the palms of her cold and quivering hands. She wonders if Shaw's lips will taste of blood, whiskey, or gunpowder, or something else unfathomable. Shaw's giving her this look that says, “I could kill you right now”, but if you get past the faulty code and hard wiring, what it's really saying is, “What the fuck are you waiting for?”. And it's too much.

Shaw isn't afraid of Root, but she should be.

The last burst of energy Root has, she could use to press their lips together and finally know what it's like to feel Shaw this way. Ultimately put her fantasies to rest and do what she's thought about doing since God knows when, but instead Root closes steel shutters over her most sought and opportune window, she pushes Shaw away.

How Shaw feels right now, aside from the obvious anger, is a fear that she will never confess to. Root knows this. She sees it in her eyes. She feels the desperation grasping her forcefully by the arms and suddenly she thinks of Hanna. Root is like a child again as she remembers the agonizing days following that dreadful night in Bishop Texas. Root used to daydream her dear friend's return, that Hanna would walk through the door at any moment and Samantha Groves would be waiting. She would hold Hanna much like Shaw is holding her now, eyes pouring sickening relief of near loss. That kind of thinking haunts you, and Root didn't want that, not with Shaw. To be so close knowing eventually the infinite chances in life could rip them apart without notice. The stakes were higher for people like them.

Their line of work would never allow such a thing, whatever this was.

So she walks away. With her back turned, a part of her winds in anticipation for a hand to reach out again, for Shaw to spin her around and take what she wants, which has always been what Root wanted too. But the air remains still and unshifted, and the footsteps abaft of whom she longed for traveled in a different direction until they faded away completely. Root breathes a sigh of reprieve... or despair. Another day Shaw will never know.

They would both go back to playing their original roles. Stoic Shaw and Risque Root in a masterpiece orchestrated by the Machine. They melted into their previous molds and carried on like the peace in the air was never clouded and disturbed.

But Root never really snapped back from that moment with Shaw, though she tried to, with even racier comments and cryptic flirtations. Her suggestiveness didn't have the same effect as it once had. She didnt feel that sudden tingle of edginess on the tip her tongue, even though Shaw seemed more perturbed than ever. What if wonderings consumed her absent thoughts and Root began to wish she made a different choice.

Hindsight and bedroom eyes, they will make you blind.

The night at the stock exchange, in the florescent and chilled basement, they were more than fucked. With a nasty gun shot wound in her side, Root was well on her way to being in Reese's injured predicament on the floor, and they all were about to feel the full force of Samaritan agents vastly closing in. Root doesnt know why she called Shaw. Maybe she just wanted to hear her voice one last time, but her heart fluttered when she heard two sets of the same low annoyed tone speaking in brief delay, and it swelled upon the vision of Shaw riding in on her proverbial white horse.

Shaw is a magnificent sight for Root's sore eyes as she takes charge of this disaster of a deadlock. Root is right behind her, supplying covering fire midst the smoke that does little to mask Shaw's perfume, and Root cannot help herself. Words she'll say, but fail to hear.

_Were so good at this together. You're gonna realize that someday._

When Root finally gets her wish, when it was Shaw pulling at her instead and closing the gap, when it was Shaw pressing her lips to Root's, searing her with a heated kiss, Root feels like she's dreaming again. There was no way Root is allowed to be this happy, and she's baffled for a microsecond before she's kissing Shaw back with the same vigor.

Everything else seemed to wash away as if it no longer mattered, and Root willingly moved with the alluring tide. She forgot about the bullet twisting in her side. She forgot about the enemy bearing down upon them. She forgot about the elevator that wouldn't move and the red button Shaw was about to sacrifice herself for. Root pushed all this away instead of Shaw, who's desperately sweet lips were everything and more.

Check box E for beyond your wildest dreams.

Then they were nothing. That cultivated moment was gone in a flash and so was Shaw, pulling down the veil of linked corrugated steel between them. Root would wonder and worry about that kiss later, whether it was a ruse or... but for now it was the least of her troubles as the cage door locked into place and the elevator began to move without Shaw safely inside. That twinge in her stomach wasn't the projectile lodged within, it was a fear she never wanted to have. A fear that maybe this would be the last time she ever lays eyes on Shaw... alive.

Root wonders and worries about a lot of things, and now they're driving her mad.


	2. Stages of Motion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow burn, but bear with me!

Grief does terrible things. It makes you sick. It feels as if nothing in this world could ever subside the pain. 

Root knows this, but she tries anyway. Being busy has a way of dulling the senses. Root works herself to the bone, anything to take her mind away from what's ailing her the most. Though it ails her more with each passing day. 

She doesn't think about Shaw when she's on the job. Sneaking into places where she doesn't belong, burglary tools embedded meticulously into a fixed cylinder. Focused on aligning the pins and not how many times she's picked the lock on Shaw's door and slipped inside. On the more challenging days, when Root's got her fingers around a trigger instead of a keyboard, she's aiming with precision for the knees, and not thinking about the crude game Shaw would try to make her play to see who can cap the most. Even behind the wheel, Root's thinking about physics. How much she should rotate the wheel given the current ruthless speed before her tires lose traction with the road. She's not thinking about the constant criticism Shaw would be growling from the backseat, if she was here. Root tries.

If it's one thing Root hates, it's to be still. Idle time can be deadly.

Constant motion is her salvation; to stop moving would only bring her closer to hell. A long time ago, Root built a machine in her mind, fueled by woes that are never ending in her life, thus the machine is so. The gears in Root's head were always turning, keeping her alive. Kind to her, as she was kind in return. Now it works in hateful overdrive. The cogs burn white hot and their teeth wear thin under the friction. Something about jagged shaved metal feels dangerous though. The possibility of slipping even more so.

Root wants the danger. She wants the difficult jobs. She wants to feel some other way.

When there's more numbers than they can handle, Root thinks about happy distractions. The Machine is pushing the team into overtime, and Root's in silent agreement that's as wavering as the forced smile on her face. After a recovery, after a job well done, Root barely has enough time to exhale before the first piece of another mission is sounded in her ear. By muscle memory she rises to the occasion. She's in a car or on a plane to who knows where this time in search of something relevant or irrelevant. But now fatigue is beginning to feel like a greater enemy than Samaritan will ever be.

These incessant desires that come with being human, Root could do without. That pang of hunger because she hasn't eaten anything in twenty-four hours, that heavy delirium that fogs her head because she hasn't slept in forty-eight. Because Root feels she would sink to never resurface again if she stops moving. The relentless current grows stronger.

Only in sleep is she so haunted by the ghost of woman that's always and never on her mind. The dreams become more vivid each night. So real, when Root wakes, drenched in a cold sweat and gasping for a breath she can't quite find, she has to remind herself of these tarnishing realities again and again. She will remind herself of choices made for the better and assume that she too will be the same. Night after night though, these things are tugging at Root, more and more, until they begin to claw.

There's a pill to stay awake. There's a pill to go to asleep. There's a pill to get a hold of yourself, but it won't do any good if you want to fall.

Root's dying a little more each day but she presses on. She's who she needs to be; the Machine's analogue interface, humble servant of an AI God. It's her purpose in this life. Root will say it over and over again until the mantra is carved into her soul, until the words burn red with a promise to leave behind scars. 

Among the other scars that lie deeper.

She'll work; continue the job she was meant to do. Saving the world, or something like that. For some reason, the long awaited destination is seemingly close to a mirage. Root wavers now, unlike before, if that's the bright future shining in the distance or a taunting decoy. Miles and miles she's gone and millions more she'll have to go. It was always easy with the target visible from afar, beckoning with flashing neon signs and sharp arrows. Her eyes have never wandered and detoured. Now Root's stopping at all the intersections, wondering about the roads less traveled. Each thought she let's linger a little more. Each time she thinks she might turn the wheel and veer off the road.

She straightens though. Because it's what Shaw would have wanted, or so Harold keeps telling her, much to her distaste. She doesn't remember when he started referring to Shaw as of late, now her speaks of her so ambiguously, it just makes Root cringe. Not because she's reminded of a great loss, but because it's then she feels the gun burning in her waistband. She hates that her hand twitches at the thought of hurting him with it.

Just work. Just keep busy. Just breathe.

Only it's become mind numbing labor. Boring and unfulfilled. She used to think the momentum would carry her along, that each hurdle would be boost in the direction of her most sought after dream. She keeps making the obstacles higher and more treacherous, perhaps harder to leap across and easier to trip over.

In the thick of it, the guidance buzzed in her ear goes ignored. Root doesn't want to know how many agents are waiting around the corner and what they're packing. She doesn't want to hear which escape routes are the safest and which streets are absent of Samaritan eyes. 

When the bullets are flying, Root's almost leaning in to them. Like she's got her mouth open under a rain cloud in a desert. A graze of near death is soothing sting, and the outward flow of blood heats the body in places so cold, they've nearly lost feeling.

People notice things when they care about you. They notice change.

Reese only has two looks to give her when she stumbles back to the shop with wounds that hit too close to home. One that suggests he thinks she's absolutely lost her mind and another that follows it with sad puppy eyes that Root can't stand. She always manages to blow him off before he can even begin to utter something about Carter, or how he understands what she's going through. Although, the undeniable difference between these two situations is that he actually watched his woman die.

Still, Root will say she's let go of Shaw, but it's a horrible lie and she knows it.

Some things are coming loose through all the wear and tear. One night, Root's looking down the sight of a gun and aiming a little higher at an agent that looks too much like Martine. The bullet hits the part of her thigh over the femoral artery and the woman bleeds out in minutes. Root feels bad for a moment, but for all the wrong reasons. Not because she's broken rule number one, but because Harold will scold her later. And he does. Along with the Machine who's buzzing weapon accuracy details while Harold goes off on a moral tangent. They're both in agreement that Root's long overdue for some target practice. Although, she's starting to think a psych ward would be better fitting than a firing range. Some things are falling apart.

Some things are kept secret.

Being the only person able to converse with the Machine has it's obvious perks. Root begs these questions, only after her resilient patience is stretched too thin. She'll be alone and sleepless at night and whisper to the one who's always listening. She'll ask and hold her breath every time while the Machine buzzes the exact same answer word for word.

//Searching... … … …//

//Asset Sameen Shaw not found.//

The Machine will always sign off with a reminder that Root has missed her last dosage. It's been twenty-three days since she's swallowed the pill that makes her care less. 

Some people seem to think the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Root's aware of this and out of naivete, thinks that she's the exception. If she realizes, then she can prevent. What Root fails to recognize though is the mere repetition of conscious acts have eroding consequences. 

The final gust of wind that polishes the rock face smooth, and the last wave to reduce it to a fine grain of sand... came unexpected one morning.

Root ambles back into headquarters after another number saved or perpetrator subdued, she isn't sure anymore. Everything seems to blur together. Harold must have left in a hurry, his tea sits full and untouched near his desk, but not on it, next to today's paper still wrapped in a rubber band. There's a faint burning smell somewhere and it makes Root worry for a moment. Upon short investigation, it's only the iron that Harold accidentally left plugged into the wall after pressing his clothes. She moves to shut it off, but stops her hand in mid flight. Steam rises from the perforated holes in the hot metal, and Root tries not to think about how she had first met Shaw. Her hand moves closer to feel the heat, emanating in a way that should have frightened Shaw once, but did not. Root tries not to think about what could have changed if she had actually pressed it to her skin. There's sizzling and smoke, there's lightening at the tip of her fingers and Root tries and tries, but finally fails. 

Until Reese is pulling her hand away and looking at her in ways she'd rather not have him look. Scorning her with his eyes, and Root stops trying to forget that it's the same stare Sameen Shaw would have granted her for being such an idiot. Because Sameen Shaw cared about her secretly and she saved their lives, and they have done nothing so far to save her's.

Now Root's sitting alone in a bar, solace in solitude at the corner booth. She's drinking Shaw's favorite kind of scotch, knowing now why Shaw loved it so much. The initial taste is smooth on her tongue and it's the best kind burn going down her throat. Warming qualities nostalgic of a woman she used to know. Root's staring into the glass as if she's looking for a reminiscent soul within when a sequence of numbers chide from the implant that hangs so heavily these days. In the past, the voice brought her comfort and joy, it gave her hope, it gave her a second chance. Now it only seems to feel like an irritating fly always buzzing, always watching from the wall.

The old Root would have abandoned her drink, paid the tab, and set off to do what was now becoming a great burden. This time, even as the nine digits echo again, Root stays unaltered, savoring the bitter amber liquid instead of the once sweet voice.

Though the Machine encourages her to action, Root takes her time, sipping from the short glass and secretly finding a way to screw her courage. The reverberation finally discontinues after the last drop is drained from the glass. Root skims a circling fingertip over the edges before she breaks the silence.

“Would you even tell me if you knew,” Root asks with an unsettling dryness in her throat, she knows it's not from the scotch. “If you knew where Shaw was,” she elaborates with a whisper that's just enough for the receiver to catch the words. The Machine doesn't answer right away, and that's alright because Root's not holding her breath this time.

She waits, and it's as if Root already knows the answer before the Machine says it.

//No.//

There's a reason, there's an explanation the Machine is giving but Root can't hear it with all the blood boiling over in her head. Root thinks about lost time that could have been spent well. She's clenching her eyes shut, her jaw, and the glass in her hand and hears nothing but what sounds like the ocean being turned in a vice. Until she remembers to breathe again, and it's as if the angered slate is wiped clean. 

Root slips a hand into her pocket and fists a wad of small bills, uncaring the amount tossed on the table before rising to stand and leave. She misses the insincere farewell from the bartender as she sways to the door. Root's great at a lot of things, but drinking has never been one of them. But sometimes in the chill of life, a warmth is needed, even if it is brief and superficial. 

The world is too loud and bright and Root winces as she steps onto the sidewalk. The streets are busy and full of people going about their usual or unusual business. They're completely oblivious of her, and what she's done to protect them from the enemy that lies within. Root wonders if these people would even care if they knew. Root wonders if she cares herself.

Root's standing motionless, gazing into the streets and once again the Machine buzzes in her ear. It's new information, further instructions telling Root to turn right and travel five blocks and... the rest might as well be white noise.

There's a wrenching ache within. A pulling that wants to take Root in tow. Sadly, she knows it's not from the three odd scotches consumed earlier. It's that instinct she's never been able to shake away.

Root looks to the right, down the busy street that never ends, the way she should go. Her former self is pushing in that direction, to that vanishing point in the distance that's supposed to be the bigger picture. Root could turn right. She could make the first step among many. She could further add to the ladder that would lead her to what she desired the most. Her reasoning for all that she's done, good and bad. 

Never did she believe her desires would change. She looks to the right and only sees a limit constantly raised without warning. The end of which felt so equivalent to Heaven.

God repeats herself and yet Root remains a statue, her face hardened like stone, peering off into the indefiniteness with weary eyes on the verge of drowning.

Root had always trusted the Machine, as cryptic as She can be, obliging any request with only a moment's notice. Always a faithful servant, instilling that same trust in others when they were hesitant and doubtful. The Machine has a plan, and Root believed in it with every atom in her body.

Now here Root stands, in her most raw and bare form with the doubt she never dreamed of having, in front of the inadmissible fork stuck sharply in the road.

She looks to the left, into a greater unknown and it somehow seems more promising.

Root can't believe how her feet feel like lead welded to the pavement as she takes the first step into a new direction opposite of her destiny. The voice echos another command to the user interface and Root simply stops and shakes her head. A hand slides into her jacket and grips the cell phone within. It flies from her grasp and into the trash receptacle close by. That same hand is reaching up behind her bad ear with trembling fingers about to sever the final link and the Machine speaks again.

//Trust me.//

She shuts her welling eyes for a moment to compose, to find stillness and clarity, but when she closes them, all she sees is Shaw.

There's a camera just above the light post, and Root gazes in to lens, into the eyes of her God the Machine. Before she undoes the battery of her implant, before she breaks the beloved bond, Root utters a single word in such a blasphemous way never thought to be punctuated. The word she feels as prickling icicles forming within her throat. So chilling as she sharply inhales the breath to load the arrow from her quiver. The sting is a rightful sin against the tip of her tongue on it's release. 

Root says, “No”.

 

Grief does terrible things... will make you do terrible things.


	3. Closer to Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Root's departure from Team Machine and her first stop among many along the dark path of her choosing.

Root doesn't look back. Not in the way most people do, fondly or with regret. The past seen with that kind of filter might as well be irrelevant and nonsensical coding. Root takes things for a living, or as she did once. She dials backwards on her shady and skewed time line and takes what she needs to move forward. The only way for Root to get through this is to reincarnate the person she once was before Harold and the Machine came into the picture. There is a new path to tread now, dangerous and unknown, a new objective. And God help anyone that gets in the way of what Root desires most.

In the beginning, it was Hanna that she desired. Young and naive Root wanted to believe that she was alive somewhere and waiting. A familiar voice in the breeze swept through the shutters of her bedroom window at night and called out to her so many times it was maddening. Root was foolishly hopeful then and it took her a long time to face reality. The day she exacted revenge on Hanna's killer, was an eye opening day. Life changing. She stopped being Samantha Groves and became someone else entirely. Someone that might scare her if she actually gave a damn.

Root has and will always be a capable person. Self sufficiency is most efficient. The only person that could ever fail you, is yourself.

This unconscious man that she is dragging, is quite heavy. What really should be a two man job. It takes all of her reserved strength to hoist him up and secure his hands to one of the meat hooks that hang from the ceiling, but the sore back in the morning will be well worth the look on his face when he comes to.

Jack Peyton: the first link in this long chain until Root finds the kink.

Before Jack retired months ago, suddenly and with a suspiciously massive pension anyone in their right mind would question, he was Special Projects and Development Coordinator for the NSA. He was present, alongside Garrison and Greer, when Samaritan first reared it's ugly face onto the world. Root's done her research on this one.

She slaps him hard across the face once, until his eyes begin to flutter open and then Root hits him again for good measure. He grumbles something incoherent and it's at this point his eyes are fully open. That look Root's been waiting for, is now ridden all over his face. The panic of waking up in a strange place. Now add the factors of being bound in a cold room with an unknown woman grinning evilly at you.

“Rise and shine Jack,” Root smiles. He begins to erratically thrash against the restraints, but it's very difficult. His feet are barely touching the floor and Root lets him swing a little, before Peyton will finally realize that he's not getting free unless Root wishes it so.

Peyton eventually stills, exhausted and huffing for air. He doesn't quite take good care of himself, does he? Root thinks. Barely pushing fifty and already he looks like slob of man. Balding, ever bulging gut, and the distinct tinge of red veins on his nose that can only be explained by long term alcoholism. Root wonders just when this man decided to give up. His official records and files only tell so much.

“Settle down before you have a coronary,” she says, and now Peyton's become aware of the situation he finds himself in. His face hardens like stone, and Root thinks this somewhat amusing. Putting on a brave face after she's just seen the look of terror in his eyes.

“Where am I?” He asks without missing a beat.

“Well, if you must know,” Root begins nonchalantly. This part has always bored her. The “Who are you? What am I doing here? questions. She wishes he would have just started off with “What do you want?” Because that's what it always comes down to anyway. He has something Root wants, or she would have never bothered drugging him in the middle of the night and stuffing him in the trunk of her car.

“Levinson's Butcher Shop, Long Island. I wanted us to talk somewhere private.” A fan in the room kicks on, and the already chilled air is blasted with an even colder draft. Root can feel it through her leather jacket. She can only imagine what it's like for Peyton, who's wearing nothing but an under shirt and sweat pants.

His skin prickles with goosebumps and Root just overtly brrs. Rubbing her arms for that warming effect, she says, “Cold in here, isn't it?” Smiling and beaming her dark eyes. “I wasn't quite sure if this thing even worked.”

The place has been closed for over eight months now. Mr. Levinson had apparently got himself mixed up in some tax fraud scandal and he lost his business over it. Oh well. Root will put his misfortunes to better use. Originally she just wanted a sound proof room nowhere near any cameras. The fact that it just so happens to be a meat locker with a still functioning cooling system is an added bonus.

“Do you know who the fuck I am bitch?” he spats out. His emphasis on the last word sends particles of saliva flying through the air, but Root's too far away to be affected.

“My name is Root,” she begins with a cunning smile. “But if bitch makes you feel better, then by all means Jack.” She paces slow steps around him, circling like a vulture and eyeing him in a way that's as if Peyton's already dead meat. “To answer your question. Yes, I know exactly who you are.” Root comes around to face him. “Past and present. Your future though, well,” she laughs lightly at her own cryptic mannerism. “That is entirely dependent on you, and the decisions you make this very moment.”

“You oversaw Samaritan's first test run. Senator Ross Garrison green lighted the project, but you,” she points and twirls her finger tip, “You were the final say so. The last line of defense-”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” he interjected. Root tilts her head to the side and smiles with white teeth.

“What?” She says sardonically, “You think a girl can't find her way around the boy's club? Don't insult me. And don't lie,” she adds with darkness dripping from the edges before pulling out this light-hearted and menacing chuckle. “Your face does this ugly twitch when you're not telling the truth,” she points out.

“So you're going to force it out of me, is that it?”

“Depends.” Root looks up and away. To the rope tightly binding his wrist above. Hands turning to a darker shade of purple now and the bound skin flushed with angry redness caused by the rough texture and his previous struggle. “On your definition of force.” She says, like the fun had just begun.

“Take a look around Jack,” Root suggests, but his eyes stay fixed and glaring at her own. “Silly me! I forgot that it's a bit difficult for you.” She steps closer, grabs him by the waist and spins him. Peyton's hardly able to control the motion as his body circles around. Once, twice, and for a third until the rope pinches hard against his skin and he lets grimaced moan. There's a bit of blood that trickles from his wrist, and Root watches unaffectedly as it snakes down his forearm.

“Do you see anything? Knives or tools?” His spinning comes to a dead stop and he looks at her with this seething hatred that Root only thrives on. “Maybe a jury-rigged car battery?” she says playfully, her eyes lighting up at the very thought.

Any of these items could easily do the job, but where was the challenge in any of that? Being predictable and doing what's expected. Sometimes what people fear the most isn't bodily harm. If you delve deeper than skin and flesh, past the bone and to the core of it all, you might find something they dread more than physical pain.

Root's good at digging.

“No, I left my toys at home today,” Root smiles. Peyton seems confused for a moment. He searches behind Root's malicious grin for some hidden meaning.

“I don't understand,” he finally says.

“Knowledge is power, if you know it about the right person. And here's what I know about you Jack. I know that every morning you wake up six AM, you put on that black and white striped robe and fetch the morning paper. You read it at the table while you eat your over easy eggs and toast. I know that on Tuesdays, you drop off your dry cleaning downtown and afterwards you walk the two blocks to the little cafe on the corner. You order a medium coffee with sugar, but no cream, and an everything bagel. On Saturdays you practice your pathetic golf swing at the driving range. On Sundays you see an early matinee by yourself, and it's almost always a romantic comedy flick.” Root trails off with boredom. “I could go on, but none of this really interests me.”

Root hacked into his bank accounts and medical records. She found almost every document on file with his name on it: newspaper articles, affidavits, bills, but none of this information proved to be useful. It wasn't until she planted cameras in his home and listening devices on his person that she discovered secrets in stone waiting to be turned. She followed him for three weeks and studied his every move in hopes that one day she would find something significant in the pattern.

Every system has a flaw. On April 14th, she found his.

“It's not the day to day that concerns me Jack.” The smile faded away from her face. Root was serious now and she wanted to reflect that upon her detainee. “There's always a greater picture outside the mundane.”

“What I am concerned with, is why you would drive over three hours just to use a payphone for three minutes.” Peyton's eyes grow wider, and Root knows she had just struck a chord. “Now that,” she punctuates, “caught my attention.”

The day he broke his regular routine, Root was tailing him. Peyton drove through heavy rainstorms without stopping, up the coast on interstate 95 and through less traveled upon state roads. His journey ended at a Stop 'n' Shop parking lot in Norwich Connecticut, where she heard his end of a very interesting phone call. Wishing someone on the other side of the line a happy birthday and signing off with words of love and longing.

He left shortly thereafter, but Root stuck around long enough to hack into the city's phone records. What she found was more valuable than gold, diamonds, and even scandalous photos. That number was dialed a total of eleven times, every year on the same date. After more research, Root identified the woman it belonged to.

Catherine Hayes of St. Mary's Georgia.

“What I also found to be interesting, is that you wished Catherine a happy birthday, and yet, her driver's license says that she was born on August 23rd,” Root said, watching for any sort of reaction from Peyton, faint or otherwise. He remained silent, but his gaze shifted downward to look at the floor. His chin began to quiver ever so slightly.

“Maybe you just forgot,” Root puts mildly. “Or maybe,” she walks closer and tilts her head slightly to find his eyes, “Her name's not really Catherine,” Root whispers eagerly, and the reaction that ensues was counted upon. Like Peyton was suddenly engulfed in flames, he shouts and thrashes violently as if being burned alive. Root leaps backwards as to not catch one of legs he is kicking in fury. She watches with an expression of indifference written on her face, waiting for this tantrum to end.

Peyton ceases his amplified threats and swears, sobbing and gasping for a breath and Root continues with her investigative report.

“You used to be a Marshall before you worked for the NSA, if I'm not mistaken.” Of course she wasn't. She had picked through Peyton's life with a fine toothed comb. “The last case you wrapped up before you broadened your horizons involved the Genovese family. The two brothers, Martin and Joseph, were indicted for the murder of three members from a rival criminal organization. The case would have been completely lost if it weren't for the only eye witness to testify against them in court. I know this was almost twelve years ago, but you don't happen to remember the witness's name do you?”

“Diane...” Peyton whispers a barely audible reply. “Her name is Diane,” he elaborates with a shakiness in his throat, like he's crumpled in ruin, defeated and admitting to his losses.

“Jack and Diane...” she ponders, “has a kind of ring to it,” Root exults. “You two have some sort of fling together during the trial?” she questions with a mocking edge to her tone and that makes Peyton raise his eyes and glare.

“I loved her,” he says like he's defending their honor that Root has just tried to cheapen.

Love is a fickle thing. Root's always chalked it up to a very strong liking of someone, the serotonin releasing and running wildly in your head. But it wasn't just a rush of chemicals, even Root could admit to that. Love is many things. It's a person you could do everything and nothing with, share silence or laughter at the same time. Words unspoken meaning more than words cast out into mediums. Eyes, looks, they said more.

Love is someone of great importance for reasons you're aware of, and then flipping to the other side of the coin, you also have no idea why. She evaluates her own feelings for Shaw in this moment. Shaw was important to her, that is true, or she would not have set out on this strayed course. But people like Shaw were few and far in between, and it wasn't just a loss for Root, it was a loss for a potential of greatness in the world.

Root ignores that her own world is crumbling as well, falling to pieces around her. When she feels the debris begin to crash at her feet, she steps away, goes to hardened place where emotions are muted, all but anger that seems to be the only thing that fuels her these days.

“Then you should have done a better job of protecting her,” she says colder than the air in this room. If he truly cared for her, then he should have let her be, let her go. Instead, he chose selfishness and let it get the better of him, compromising the security he once promised to the woman he claimed to love.

“If you hurt her I swear to God-” Peyton spits a warning of empty promises, and it doesn't even stir Root in the slightest. He's not in a position to be doling out threats, tied tightly from the ceiling, but that fact is not why Root remains unmoved. She's not sure why's she's so numb; if it's the freezing air or her sudden lack of empathy.

“Not me Jack,” she says lowly, and a part of her hates that a smirk is creeping at the corners of her mouth, “It's not me you have to worry about.”

His eyes dart every which way in Root's. Searching again like before, but this time it seems like he's coming to conclusions and battling them futilely with denial.

“What have you done?” Peyton quivers, asking the question he's been too afraid to ask since Root mentioned April 14th and St. Mary's.

“What I will do,” Root pulls out the phone from her jacket pocket, and presents it like the device is the long desired culmination, the point she's been skirting around all this whole time. “Is send her address and photo to every person in this country that goes by the name Genovese.”

The horror in Peyton's eyes, that flash of desperation, Root's expected it, and unknowingly feeds off of it. She looms treacherously over him, like he's small and insignificant, like she holds all the cards in the house.

“They will find her, they will kill her, and there wont be a single thing in this world you can do to stop it,” Root says slowly and maniacally, scrolling through the list of one hundred and twenty four people in the contacts, and that's just the eastern seaboard.

“What do you want? I'll do anything, just don't let them get to her,” Peyton pleads so adamantly, and Root scoffs internally at his overbearing weakness. He's so easy, so malleable.

“I thought you'd never ask,” she smiles, bringing the mobile device that can potentially damage and destroy everything he holds so dear to her side. “I'm looking for someone, a mutual friend if you will. You've met him. Goes by the name Greer.”

A panic wrestles it's way in Peyton's eyes, back and forth hurriedly before he replies, “I don't know.”

All Root does, a simple swipe and a click of a few buttons, and it's enough to rattle every nerve in Peyton's body and make him flinch.

“Wait, wait wait!” He exasperatingly pleads repeatedly, like his words of protest will keep Root from doing the damnable. She pauses anyway, on her own accord, as another tactic. “Stop, please!,” he shouts. “I don't know, I swear!”

He could be telling the truth, or he could be trying to save his own skin, Root wavers.

“That's not good enough,” she remarks, looking to him and then to the screen of her phone glowing with malign email addresses. She scrolls through the list again, paying no attention to the man squirming at the ropes. At least one of these names had the potential of causing such an uproar.

“Wait!” Peyton yells and this time there are tears streaming down his face, from agony or desperation, Root doesn't care. All she wants is information, from whatever way, shape, or form she has to extract it from. She stops her taunting for a moment, looking to Peyton like the next words out of his mouth better be useful.

“There was another man there with Garrison!”

“What's his name?” Root asks wavering the leverage in the palm of her hands.

“Carl Saunders,” Peyton sputters. “He was the senator's right hand. He works in the Office of Special Counsel now. If you're trying to find Greer, then he's the guy you need to talk to.”

Root looks with weighing suspicion to this man on the verge of a heart attack and spilling his guts for all to see. He could be lying, there's always that possibility. Root reads him, with scrutiny and painstaking attention to detail, scanning between the written lines for a subtext that may or may not be there.

“That will have to do,” Root sighs, returning the phone to it's rightful place in her jacket pocket. Looks like she'll have to dive a little deeper to find what she considers unreachable buried secrets. If Peyton knew anything more, he'd of told her. She knows, no one's that good of an actor, not even her. If it was all just an act though, those tantrums and tears were a nice enough touch to grant an academy award nod.

Root turns to leave, but Peyton's protests are impossible to ignore.

“Wait! I gave you what you wanted! You're not just going to leave me here are you?” He speaks with a glint of hopefulness in his eyes that disgusts Root, leaves a sour taste in her mouth and a wrenching in her stomach.

Foolish he is, for not reading into Root's own words. If he complied, she'd let Diane off the hook, but Root never said anything about cutting Jack down from his.

Earlier, while Root was tying up this unconscious loaf, she considered letting him go if he said what she wanted to hear.

Considered.

But Peyton's just expanded the bridge that Root needs to cross in order to find Shaw. Widened the gap with more players and obstacles that could possibly lead Root to a dead end that she refuses to fathom. He can't help what little he knows, but then again, maybe things would have panned out differently if this man hadn't made such selfish choices; to feed his heart or his own career.

A butterfly flaps it's wings, a man signs his name on a dotted line, and it changes the course of history.

Maybe Shaw would still be here if it weren't for people like him.

Root closes the thick and heavy door behind her, ignoring the curdling screams coming from the other side. The contrast of the once freezing air to the stifling warmth of a new room, it burns Root's cheeks in a way that makes her think of passages from Dante's Inferno, but read in reverse.

The noise fades away into silence when she presses further on the seal and turns the rusted lock into place. Abandoning the man cursing her to the deepest pits of Hell, Root leaves him to meet his own reckoning, knowing full well in the back of her mind, she just might burn with him one day.

Until then, Root has more important things to worry about.


	4. She's Not There

From a hotel window five stories above, Root spies. Leaning against the pane of glass and looking down to the streets below, she sighs heavily until her breath fogs the transparency between her and the outside. America's Rome, Capital City. A political metropolis she cares nothing for except...

Wiping away the cloud that smudges the city's view, Root taps the particular part of the glass at eye level.

Nothing except but what lies in that building barely seen in the distance. The one Root will find her way into in the very near future. And if all goes well, she'll get to stick another pin in this road map of pain, until all the holes she's poked in the world bleed every last drop of information she needs.

Until she finds Shaw.

Root wonders of a woman. Wonders if Shaw will be as cold and stiff as this window... she quickly shakes her head at the shattering thought. No. Shaw will be warm and alive. Root will die knowing that.

She never realized her ears were ringing, until the quiet white noise lifted to the volume of the streets below. The sounds of monotonous car horns and voices warbled together into an inaudible mess. One sound in particular does prick her ear, even though she tries to tune it out. Sniffling, shifting, whimpers coming from a place closer than what's on the other side of the glass.

Root looks to her watch instead of the young blonde woman tied to the chair. Tries to focus on the minute and hour hands that seem to be turning at such as slow pace, it causes her own hand tremble with anxiousness. It's almost time to leave, but not just yet. There are just a few more things to take care of.

This woman, Betty, she's crying more mascara than tears, Root notices when she finally does turn around. She looks helpless, frightened, lost even, and Root just stares with an hollowness in her eyes.

There used to be a time Root cared, the smallest amount seemingly enough for someone like her. If anything, a mere semblance of compassion. The muscle memory of her smile would shift on command to expressions of sympathy. Now her face remains unmoving, hardened like a stone wall wedged between her and humanity. Unwilling or unable to relent and recollect.

She thinks her small heart is somewhere on the other side. Too weak to burst free.

Aware of the stagnancy of her emotions, Root wills a part of herself in the off chance it's not true. She gazes to the woman; to her wrists burning an angry shade of red under the tight zip ties, to the silver duct tape muffling but not muting her protests, to the river of sad black lines streaking down her cheeks.

Returning empty handed again, Root calls off the search. Settles for something else she knows is wrong. Strangely, the darkness that's taken residency within provides it's own kind of contentment, fulfilling in enough ways to keep her strong, to carry her through to the next day.

This woman, maybe she's undeserving of this sort of treatment, but then again, no one is as innocent as they appear. Root is a prime example; charming her way into this hotel room and stunning the unsuspecting blonde with a million volts. At any rate and rationale aside, Betty is relevant to Root's success, her identity at least.

Dawning the dress suit that doesn't belong to her, Root wavers all the wrong ideas.

Not if her actions were unnecessarily brutal... No, Root jogs in her head, what she's going to do if this woman cries any louder. She readily looks to the pistol and the stun gun sitting side by side on the bed. Standing at the fulcrum, she balances these deadly options. Decidedly, she hovers her hand over each harmful instrument in full view of Betty's terror stricken eyes. To bring awareness of the harm Root could potentially inflict. If she hasn't yet inflicted enough already.

With what muscles Root has left, she calls upon them maliciously. Raising a single menacing finger to her lips, she grins a devilish grin that's a mere preview to what kind of evil she's capable of. Fortunately, a hushing motion is all it takes to solidify this silent agreement, and Betty stifles the sounds Root doesn't want to hear anymore. Not because they pang a string of guilt in her conscience. Root's conscience is only a silent partner in crime these days. No. Root finds the noise irritating and pathetic.

Root leans in to that effect, takes a teary cheek into the palm of her hand. “Be good,” she says cautiously, wiping away some of the black stain under Betty's eyes with her thumb. They had another agreement. Cooperation equaling to freedom, though Root still isn't sure what she's going to just yet.

Some people, you point a gun at them and they surrender without a struggle. They don't fight for what they claim to hold so dearly. Life, when it's threatened, most people like Betty let themselves be manipulated. Root could have her believe anything at this point. Apathy and fear make for good molding.

But it isn't the apathy that sickens Root, it's herself. Her still very anxious disposition, her hand still trembling involuntarily. She quickly removes it from the blonde's cheek in disgust, eyes deeply studying each of her quivering fingers as she walks towards the bathroom.

A curious development, Root thinks as she fumbles with the faucet. She hasn't rattled like this in a very very long time. She can pin point the day: leaving Bishop and starting her new life. Confident in her plan but initially terrified when it came to execution. In time though, the trepidation passed. She stopped second guessing herself and aimed true without faltering.

Her hands trip again with the prepackaged bar of soap lying on the counter. The Adrasteia, a Greek sounding title written across the paper in scripted lettering. Such an odd name for this kind of bland hotel. Root squints as she reads it, the word itself flickering some intangible memory she can't quite recall. Perhaps of a passage read in one of Harold's old textbooks, when Root was locked away in the Faraday cage.

When Root was harmful. Was... is. There is little difference now. The difference is lost in a medium she tries not think about.

It all seems so long ago. The not so distant past chillingly creeps in cold waves down her rigid spine. Root shivers as she remembers what she's left behind. Harold and Reese and the Machine, tombstones now mark their place in Root's time line now.

The hot water, almost scalding, it does little to warm and even less to wash away these sneaking feelings that come and go too quickly to understand. She inspects her red hands, dangerous and numb in the way she undoubtedly feels. They still tremble with an uncertainty that once irked in her younger years. Starting out and starting anew. The timidness Root thought she left behind in Texas thaws out in the spring. Reawakened after decades of laying dormant, bringing along with it even more terrible side effects.

Shaking her wrists, she tries to ignore the developing tightness in her chest, the pangs in her stomach. She tries to breathe even though it seems her lungs are crushing within a vice winding with pressure. Because now, of all the times and places, is a horrible moment to be having a panic attack, or whatever this new thing her body is deciding to do. More often since disconnecting herself from the Machine.

A part of her sanity, too, frays at the broken ends.

There are these pills. Little white ones in the bottom of Betty's purse Root remembers seeing. The purse sitting on the counter, it's turned over and emptied in an instant, contents spilling and clattering to the floor until an unmistakable orange bottle comes to view. The bottle is child proof and irritating, and Root's frantic hands struggle to release the lid. Tension growing as she turns, frustration finally meets it's limit with one fatal slip of a hand. The bottle and it's helpful friends go flying, into the marble sink where Root watches in horror every single white tablet spin into the drain.

“Fuck!” She slams her fist against the tiled wall, against the mirror that would crack if she willed it to. Root makes the smarter choice though, and brings both of her shaking hands down to brace the edges of the counter instead. Closing her eyes, Root breathes, gripping and trying to get a grip on herself. The marble is cool against her palms. A smoothness to her callous skin, she thinks that is what she needs to be. To be like marble, cold and statuesque, stoically chiseled, hardened on the inside and out.

It's then Root feels a sudden shift in this small room. A rush of something further unsettling, a cause to raise the hairs on the back of her neck, to prickle the flesh of her exposed forearms. At first, she believes it to be another symptom of her apprehensive body responding to stress in this horribly new fashion. Root believes it to be so, but only for a short moment.

“You didn't need those anyway,” comes a stern and dangerously familiar voice. The impossible semblance of it returns that cold wave back up Root's spine. She lifts her head toward the mirror and inwardly debates whether or not she wants to know the source of such a voice, muses what she'll see if and when she finds the courage to actually open her eyes.

“Shaw?” Root nearly croaks through the lump forming in her throat. In the mirror's reflection, Root sees the woman who incessantly envelopes her thoughts. The woman she's been tirelessly searching for day in and day out. She's here in this room, abaft and leaning against the door's frame with arms crossed over a thick black coat and a casual indifference crossing her face. This short hysterical laugh escapes from Root's tightened chest, and her breath could seize again, when Shaw gives a smirk.

“Who else would I be?” Shaw lightly shrugs to Root's alarm.

No. Root shakes her head in an attempt to erase. “You can't be...” You can't be you, Root thinks. Shaw was taken away from her, an endless amount of miles that Root's been chasing relentlessly for... she doesn't even want to know the number of days or weeks turning into months. “You're not real,” Root says, wishing there were more surety in her voice than hesitance.

“I can be whatever ever the hell I want. So deal,” Shaw says defensively, tightening her arms over her chest and Root can't help but eye the sink in bargaining curiosity. If it's not too late to pry the pipe off underneath and retrieve one of those pills that still might be there, she wonders.

“Geez,” Shaw rolls her eyes. “Don't look so thrilled.”

You have no idea, Root thinks. Surprised, shocked... those would have better described how Root feels in this moment. Add absolutely out of her mind to that list and the cracking surface might be scratched.

Root looks to her watch again, rather to Shaw. She wants to runaway with the time always escaping her. She wants Shaw to disappear along with the little black dots when she rubs her eyes.

“Why can't I be real?” Shaw eventually asks, and Root wishes she would just stop listening. She finds more concern with the unimportant items littered across the floor, ignoring the black boots smugly crossed over the tile as she hurriedly picks them up.

She's about to reach for something farther away, when it's quickly covered by a thick sole.

“Why?” Shaw repeats herself. On hands and knees, Root sighs to the floor.

Despite the obvious? That the woman Root wants so badly is probably holed up somewhere in a Samaritan black site. But that would be too obvious.

“Because you,” Root says deliberately, “are just a figment of my disturbed imagination. A projection of my subconscious,” to put more simply, even though Root feels the complication rising. “Nothing more.” She hopes and prays.

And with that, Shaw kicks the tube of lipstick under her boot across the floor.

“Probably all that nail polish you huff destroying your brain cells,” Shaw shoots back.

“Entirely possible...” Root mumbles to herself as she stands. Or it's entirely possible she's coming apart at the seams. She looks to Shaw for a brief moment that turns into an eternity. For such a damaged mind, Root's done an excellent job replicating Shaw. From the strands of hair that stray from her pony tail, to her deadpanned eyes and plumply pursed lips, to the small freckle on her collar bone...

_Slap!_

Root never realized she was reaching so far out until her hand is swatted away. She glares at her fingers stinging with sensation and contemplates her own disposition. “I must be going crazy...”

“Weren't you already?” Shaw teases.

That's a matter of perspective. What is more or less sane really? Killing for a profit, killing for a machine, or just killing for a person. But Root decides preparing for today's endeavor is a better use of her time than calculating her exact level of madness. She has to make herself look somewhat presentable, like an average, sane, and healthy woman. Shaw just idly watches as Root becomes this person she's never been and never will be.

“Maybe I'm a ghost then,” Shaw says after some odd minutes of silence.

Perhaps, Root thinks. A ghost come back to haunt her.

“So what you're saying is.. even in the afterlife, you'd still miss me.” Root gives a half hearted smile and Shaw rolls in her eyes in usual disgust. She shoves her hands into her coat pockets and glances away as she grumbles a “No.” under her breath.

“Nonetheless Shaw, I'm flattered.” Root gathers the long waves of her hair and pulls them back into a knot. It's then that she notices how Shaw casual observing has turned into crucial staring, eyes narrowed to Root's right ear with growing curiosity.

“You and _Her_ fighting or something?” Shaw asks candidly with a raised brow. The seemingly innocent question just makes Root's stomach twist into tighter knots. She absent-mindedly trails her fingers over the shell of her ear where the implant used to be, out of habit. It still doesn't feel natural, the smooth skin Root finds instead of hard plastic.

The unique connection to the Machine, it's probably rotting under two tons of New York City garbage by now. Abandoned, just like Root's loyalty.

“It's not safe for Her anymore... to speak to me the way She used to.”

It's a lie. It's a great big lie out of many that leave her lips so easily these days, but this one, Root seems to struggle with. This lie, it just darkens this ever growing hollow within her chest.

Shaw suspiciously lifts her chin, looking to Root as if she's far from persuaded. But Root, she decides not to care whether or not she's convincing enough to a transparency and continues getting ready. The wig will be the last of it. Root combs through the synthetic blonde strands before carefully placing it atop her head. Just as she expected though, Shaw bursts with amusement.

“Oh, I get it,” she says, kicking off her lean from the wall. “I was wondering about Bondage Barbie in there,” she nods off to the other room, to where the restrained woman still sits adamantly quiet. “The Machine stopped making fake identities for you, so you go and steal hers?”

“Keen as ever, you are,” Root says, bobby pinning the wig until it's securely fastened to her head.

“Who is she anyway?”

Root irritatingly rolls her eyes as she turns. “The right person at the wrong time. Does it matter?”

“Mattered enough for you to rough her up like that,” Shaw says, taking the one step forward into Root's personal space. “Tell me again why she's so special.”

“I...” Root hesitates and shifts her gaze. “I didn't think you were the jealous type Shaw,” Root recovers, but not in the nick of time it seems.

“You're hiding something,” Shaw accuses, and if her eyes were any more narrowed they'd be shut by now. So Root deflects in the only way she knows how.

“You can frisk me if you want,” she teases with a tired smile and turns to Shaw, wondering if it will elicit the desired effect.

“Ok Root,” Shaw nods and bites the inside of her cheek. “Ok,” she says again, but begins to back away.

Until she's standing on the other side of the threshold, so far away it seems, and Root thinks Shaw might disappear back into the thin air from which she arrived. For a moment, Root wavers if it will give her relief, and in another, wonders if it will only bring her more sorrow. Shaw looks to the right, towards the door leading out and Root holds her breath. When those dark eyes return, they stay affixed. Root feels them bombarding, like Shaw's gaze somehow has the power to penetrate down to the very fiber.

What is she waiting for?

The truth. Shaw's waiting for the truth that Root finds so difficult to speak. And when Root still fails to reveal and deliver, Shaw just grows impatient. She huffs a breath of annoyance before turning heel and striding further into the room.

By the time Root catches up, Shaw's already begun her ransacking of the room. Root can only watch as drawers are emptied onto the floor, contents of suitcases tossed around haphazardly. Shaw nearly breaks the closet door as she forcibly swings it open and curses loudly when she, still, finds nothing.

In the center of the room, Shaw finally stands silent and still, looking a thousand yards away out the same window Root stood by earlier.

“Are you finished?” Root says in a reprimanding tone that makes Shaw grant her a sideways glance.

“No,” Shaw replies coldly, calmly in a way that makes no sense given what she's just done. But Root figures it out, when she realizes Shaw's gaze was never really directed to her, but to the bed she's standing beside.

It's Betty's brown leather briefcase in the space underneath that Shaw finds and pries open. She rifles through the leaves of papers until one in particular draws her attention. Root already knows what it reads before Shaw holds it up like damnable evidence. Printed email correspondence relevant to today's escapade, she's sure.

“What is this?” Shaw demands, gesturing to the paper crumpling within her tight grip. Through the wrinkles in the sheet, Root can just barely make out some of the written lines. It's the letter confirming the meeting scheduled this morning at the Office of Special Council. It's the letter that makes Shaw look to Root like she's up to no good and ask, “What the fuck are you doing?”

But Root doesn't answer. She finds the look Betty's giving more aggravating than Shaw's. Through the mess scattered all over the floor, Root finds her needle in a haystack. The syringe, she uncaps it and flicks it free of bubbles before holding it to Betty's neck.

“Root!” Shaw's hand, shot like a bolt of lightening around Root's wrist right as the tip of the needle kisses skin.

“Relax,” Root says. Unsure if she's actually speaking to Betty or to Shaw, or just to herself as her muscles strain against the hold. The needle agitatingly stirs deeper and deeper as one grip tries to out do the other. But it sinks in enough ways for Root's tricky thumb to depress the plunger. Betty's eyes flutter before her entire body goes limp.

“It's only a sedative,” she reassures. Shaw releases her grip for Root to remove the syringe and toss it to the floor.

“I'd like to see you on the other end of a needle, for once,” Shaw bitterly jabs, looking to Root as if eyes could burn holes through flesh and bone.

It hits Root inwardly. She remembers then what it felt like, when her heart wanted to beat right out of her chest. When there was a push: Control sticking her seventeen times. When there was a shove: Shaw throwing her back into that damn elevator. Somewhere in the middle, they should meet. Come together in the name of sacrifice, in a way Root thinks Shaw should understand.

Who is Root kidding anyway? Herself? She shrugs, into the jacket belonging to someone else, throwing everything back in the briefcase and closing the lid.

“Don't,” she hears Shaw say. With less anger and more worry in her voice. It's abundantly clear when Root looks to her, eyes telling tales of concern rather than hatred. Just as they did all that time ago.

“Don't what?” Root hits back in harsh reply, brushing past Shaw like she's another obstacle in her path. Grazing shoulders, Root thinks it might be worse than speaking to someone that isn't there, actually feeling them on your skin.

It isn't real, she tells herself. Over and over again, loudly in her mind to drown out the footsteps following closely after her own down the long corridor.

“So you've found a way in,” Shaw says in tow. “Good for you Root. But that's a government building, which means it's teaming with security not to mention secret service. And from the look of things, you're about to waltz in there blind.” Blind and deaf, but surely not dumb.

“In case you've forgotten Shaw, this is the sort of thing I did long before I met you,” Root replies hurriedly, irritated. “It'll be a walk in the park just like it was the first time.” Before, when she relied solely on her own capabilities and not the Machine's.

“The only difference between then and now, is Samaritan wasn't breathing down your neck then.”

Root stops at the elevators and turns to Shaw. “It can't see me, you know that,” she quickly reminds and jabs the down arrow button.

“Their agents can. What makes you think there won't be any?” Shaw rebuttals, but Root's fully aware of the risks. Just as she was the day she walked away. The prize, the reward for her endless toiling still proves to outweigh the hazards she's preparing to encounter.

“Look,” Shaw tries to level, “When it comes to a number, I'm all in, no questions asked. But even I will admit when I need backup. I think you need to phone in John or Harold. Fuck, maybe even Fusco. Get some help at least.”

Root's in this alone though. Back to square one, to the beginning. There's nothing left to call upon now but the elevator that refuses to come. Root repeatedly hits the button glowing deep red, watches as the numeric levels descend at such a glacial pace.

Shaw steps forward, leans in like she's trying to interrupt. “Are you even listening?”

Unfortunately Root is. She can hear every word and understand even though she doesn't want to. “This isn't about a number-” she stops herself. Pauses with lips sealed shut, a vault door to protect her thoughts from ever getting away. Though they wish to. They pleadingly pound against steel trap doors in effort to escape, to be known to someone else.

“Why then?” Shaw intrusively questions. “Why is this so important?”

And suddenly Root's the one who wants to escape. She finally stops with her waiting, takes to the door marked stairs and abandons her own patience. Her heart drums to the rhythm of each quickly descended step, the echo of her heels chased by another not far off beat.

“Root!” Shaw calls out urgently close behind, and Root just quickens her fleeing pace. Shaw isn't there, she's not supposed to be, if Root runs fast enough maybe her mind will catch up. Maybe the haunting footsteps following her will dissipate into the nothing they are meant to be.

“Root!” Shaw shouts again, adamantly louder this time. So loud that Root's ears begin to ring again and she cringes in invisible pain.

On the landing somewhere between floors three and four, Root stops dead in her tracks. The sudden halt in movement makes all the blood chase straight to her brain and build with overwhelming pressure. She turns to Shaw incorrectly, rigid, with her fists clenched at her sides. Her anger growing with every involuntary shake that she despises. Bringing a finger from a fist, Root points, yells like it would be some sort of release even though she knows it's unreachable.

“You wanna know what's so fucking important?” Root screams, her voice trembling with the finger nearly jabbing Shaw in the chest. “The reason for all of this..” She stops herself again, remorsefully pulls her hand away from the impossible resistance meeting it at the other end. From the woman who's there, but really isn't there at all. Root knows with all certainty, yet she cannot, for the life of her, deny what she sees. This effect Shaw's eyes have always had on her. Dark eclipses reflecting something she's never quite understood, something Root fears but cannot run away from.

Root finds herself retreating from them anyway, suddenly at a loss. “It's you...” she whispers past the hardness in chest and the lump tightening in her throat. “This is for you. To find you.”

“I don't need you to come to my rescue,” Shaw replies without skipping a beat. “I can take care of myself.”

Just like her to say such a thing, Root thinks, and painfully smiles past her own sadness. “The trail's getting warmer, and where ever it leads, that's where I'll be. One way or another.”

“What if that way ends up getting you killed? Then what?” Shaw grimly says. “We are losing this war Root. What chance do you think Harold will have without you?” Root finds herself pressed flat against the wall, wanting to sink into the bricks at her back. “Finding a way to end the AI apocalypse is more important than finding me. If you go too, then all that we've done so far... it would have been for nothing.”

 

“It's already too late,” Root softly chokes. “There is no going back.”

 

The silence she had wished for finally comes, but still, it's unexpected and unprepared for. It's unnerving, the way words fail, the way Shaw's lull fills the empty stairwell. The way her steel gaze suddenly feels so cold as the truth undeniably sets in. Root is shamefully small under the intensity of Shaw's dark eyes scorning deeply into her soulless shell.

“Never in a million years did I think...” Shaw just shakes her head in disbelief.

And Root knows the words that Shaw's chasing after. _Never in a million years did I think you'd leave Harold in the dust. Never in a million years did I think you'd choose me over the Machine_.

Root waits and a million years go by in silence before Shaw breaks the deafening barrier.

“...Did I think you would do something so stupid,” Shaw ends on the lowest of notes, striking an out of tune chord in Root. It resonates and stings within her empty body.

When Root turns away for good, Shaw's icy stare is to her back, chilling her spine as she descends the stairs again. This time, there are no following footsteps, no final pleas or protests, just a dead silence save for Root's heavy treading. She holds her breath to fight this unwanted welling in her eyes. The sadness and futility she knows might one day overcome her completely, it's another enemy entirely. Far more dangerous than any threat she's ever come across.

She thinks she hears Shaw speak again. A quiet, “Please,” softly spoken from the top of the landing. It drifts down below and lands upon Root's ear like a single fallen snowflake. But it melts, evaporates into thin air, and it's gone when Root hears, “I'm not worth it.”

Root sighs out the lungful she's been holding, rejects the sound with a newly stolen breath.

“You're wrong.”

 

_You are worth everything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to insert Shaw into the story sooner rather than later and i thought this was the best way go about it. Btw, this story is in no way supernatural, it's sort of mindfucking for Root i guess. More "Ghost" Shaw to come.


	5. A Lesson in Myth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Root becomes suspicious when things don't add up.  
> "Shaw" becomes a permanent fixture in Root's campaign.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. If you're still following, i hope you enjoy.

An immeasurable amount of time later, Root blinks.

 

Her eyes flutter rapidly, batting away the onset burning of a tunneled gaze fixed a hundred miles away and to nothing. It takes her a moment, to remember who and where she is this time. In her peripherals are blonde strands of hair draped across her shoulders and straight forward a steering wheel tightly clutched within bloodied hands. It all comes back to her slowly, dragging in an insufferable way.

 

In a car parked underneath the shadow of a bridge, Root steadily remembers.

 

The role she had tried to slip into, the part of unbeknownst Betty and the rendezvous that would grant her access, it all just fell apart before the final act could finish, before the last bow and the curtain close.

 

Root would like to lay it all out and pick through every detail, analyze and pull apart this seemingly solid plan and how it fell to pieces. But she struggles to catch the thoughts rapidly whizzing by in her head, and her mind just goes into a fog with all the clouded scenarios and decisions.

 

In fact, her entire body feels parallel, abruptly blocked, much in the way her brain is. This state, a heaviness, a dulling ache that protests for long moments of stillness, but that would be asking for too much. A luxury. Root knows she needs to move, knows that prolonged inactivity would be the equivalent of her own demise.

 

But she sympathizes with her body's demands and starts small. The joints of her fingers creak with the new and simple notion of just slacking their grip on the wheel. It's as if they've been there for so long they've forgotten how to function. It's as if she's glued to the gray leather when she tries to pry them away. The sound tape makes when it's slowly peeled, it's the same sound as she pulls her hands free. The adhesive which caused them to stick though, it's unsettling.

 

Red. Root's never so much as batted a lash at the color, let alone, at much of anything else. But the coagulated mess coats her skin, the ins and outs of her hands and up her forearms. A morbid stickiness drying with the exposed air and filling her nostrils with the thick metallic scent of death. She tries to wipe some of it away on the fabric of her shirt, but it's a vain attempt. The silk blouse she finds to be just as ruined, saturated to a point where the original color underneath is barely recognizable now.

 

She stares blankly into the palms of her hands freshly coated with yet another layer of blood and searches endlessly throughout the lines stretched across them like circuitry. She thinks there's a new wrinkle hidden somewhere under the deep red. Another line for another horrible thing she's done...

 

 

“So...” Root hears, but she fails to recognize the voice that breaks the silence. So naturally, she just reacts. Her reflexes immediately reach for the pistol laying on the dash, fingers closing around the heavy steel and swinging it the direction of the sound that's disturbed what she thought to be solitude.

 

But it's Shaw who sits idly in the backseat, slouched into the leather and completely indifferent to the business end of gun pointed her way. She seems to find something far more interesting underneath her nails for a moment, until she finally looks up. It's barely a glance that she spares to the hollowed black barrel staring directly back, before her gaze shifts and her dark eyes lock onto Root's.

 

“How was that walk in the park?” Shaw asks with a subtle lift of her brow and a not so subtle glint of sarcasm.

 

Root frowns at that, in the way this smugness curls at the edges of Shaw's lips. She sighs as she aggravatingly clicks the safety into place and twists forward in her seat.

 

“Come here to gloat Shaw?”

 

“Me? Gloat?” Shaw chuckles. “No Root, of course not.”

 

There's a tug on the back of Root's seat as Shaw leans in, propping an elbow atop the center console, chin resting on her knuckles. Out of the corner of her eye, Root can still see Shaw beaming with triumph and practically squirming. “Well, I guess it depends... Does _I told you so_ count as gloating?”

 

Root's over the top eye roll practically drags her entire body with it. She's out of the car before she even realizes, storming off from her own imagination for the second time today. Although, this go around is more difficult. The points of her heels awkwardly connect with the gravel, making her steps uneven and wobbly. Root's sure it's the shoes and not her own legs that feel as if they'd buckle at any moment. But she becomes more motivated for even quicker strides, when she hears the rocks kicking in her wake and the sound of laughter that makes her cheeks burn hot.

 

She stops just short of the second car parked not too far away. Her vehicle, the real getaway car. She stops because she's close enough to make out her own reflection in the windows and the shined metal. It's something out of a slasher film, Root thinks, when she sees herself for the first time. Blood speckled and smudging her pale cheeks, the entire front side of her body from the neck down absolutely drenched.

 

“C'mon Root,” Shaw calls out as she approaches. “I was joking.”

 

And still, Root doesn't acknowledge, even when the foot falls abaft come to a halt so close to where she stands.

 

“Root.” There's concern in Shaw's voice now, a kind that Root would like to ignore, but it becomes impossible as her name is repeated yet again, a little louder, a little too serious. And it's the hand that comes to Root's shoulder that snaps her back, a touch that isn't there, but Root flinches from it anyway.

 

She sharply pivots a heal, turning about and deflecting in the same motion. “Don't,” Root warns, but it falls upon deaf ears when Shaw fully takes in the gory sight before her. And already, she's prodding the collar of Root's shirt, searching for an origin, for a wound that could possibly do this much damage.

 

“That's a lot of blood,” Shaw remarks under her breath. She goes to to lift the bottom of Root's blouse, and Root just looks away, out of guilt maybe.

 

“It's not my blood,” she admits. What she doesn't admit though, is who the blood really belongs to. A man with the secrets that Root so desperately coveted, who, up until this morning, worked for The Office of Special Council. A man by the name of Saunders who fell victim to Root and her war path.

 

Shaw angrily tugs the fabric back down to it's respective place and scowls.

 

“Next time, it will be,” Shaw says with bitterness in her voice.

 

Root thinks she feels the bite and the chilled breeze that catches her oddly. The gust of wind sweeps through the thin material of the button up damply clinging to her skin, and Root shivers in remembrance of the eerie warmth that had once pooled there earlier.

 

A flash, and Root's right back in that office, drumming her fingers with anticipation on the wooden desk, excited as she watches the progress bar slowly fill up on a monitor. As she copied this hard drive, she fantasized of all the secrets she would find, the eventual reckoning to be had at her hands. Nearly finished when there came an unexpected turn of a handle, and the man who was supposed to be in meetings all morning suddenly occupied the same space.

 

It's a soundless replay in her mind. Saunders standing at the doorway in alarming confusion, his mouth uttering muted words and questions regarding Root's unauthorized presence. She remembers his stance shifting in a matter of seconds, from that of cautioned to hostile. A whirlwind of adrenaline and swinging fists, and Root had found herself back pressed to the desk with his meaty hands wrapped around her throat.

 

Root gingerly touches the part of her neck surely bruising by now. The muscles and tendons ache underneath the skin where he squeezed so hard, she thought her spine would break in two.

 

“You're going to get yourself killed if you keep up this reckless routine of yours,” but Root only scoffs at that.

 

Shaw has no idea just how close it had come to that point. How a such a random event had nearly ended her purpose and her life. Root thought she had all her bases covered, the mission was planned down to the very last detail of her lipstick. Things that happen like this, like today, they shine a horrible light on all the endlessly unknown possibilities that could one day bring her to failure. Yet, Root cannot help but praise the one moment, when she saw the stars of death twinkling in her eyes, that one moment where they worked in her favor instead.

 

Something cold and hard scattered among the clutter tossed on the very same desk she was thrown upon. Her desperate fingers grabbed a hold of what Root would later realize to be a letter opener. The one useful thing in reach while Saunders tried to wrench the life from her. Just as the darkness encircled her eyes, she sunk it into his pulse. Again and again, until all the warmth of his life poured out in streams.

 

“I made I out, didn't I?” she says without care and walks to the rear of the car. Root opens the trunk and starts searching through her own personal effects inside.

 

“From the look of it?” Shaw nods to Root and her mess of a state. “Barely.”

 

“You're one to talk Shaw,” Root sourly grumbles to herself, as she tosses clothes and other random things about. She thinks Shaw doesn't hear it, but she knows she's wrong when Shaw takes a harrowing step forward into her personal space.

 

“Something you wanna say to me Root?” Shaw challenges, the octave of her voice rising to meet the staggering temperature her hot head was known for. If her tone wasn't at all obvious, then her posture sure was. From the corner of her eye, Root can see the fists clenched at Shaw's side and the rigidness of her stance. And if Root's not mistaken, Shaw's probably sporting her award winning glare that could strike fear into the heart of any unlucky soul it was directed towards.

 

Anyone but Root.

 

“Correct me if I'm wrong...” Root says and happily turns to Shaw in her most notoriously defiant way. “You're allowed to throw yourself into harms way whenever you feel like it, but I'm not. Is that right?” Root cocks her head to one side and waits for a response. She doesn't have to wait long.

 

“Yes.” Shaw replies so simply and with the utmost of unreadable expressions. And for a moment Root is just so baffled by the answer, by Shaw's blatancy in conveying what Root thinks to be such a double standard. She waits to see if some sort of elaboration is to be added, if Shaw will even hint towards the possibility of a joke, but neither come.

 

“You are such a hypocrite,” Root irately sneers as she reverts her attention away. She begins to unfasten the list of tedious buttons on her shirt before finally giving up and ripping them off. It's not hers and it's ruined anyway.

 

“And a firm believer in _Do as I say, not as I do_... but that's not my point.”

 

“I wasn't aware you had one.” Root throws the tattered articles of clothing unceremoniously to the ground by Shaw's feet, topping off the bloodied heap with the blonde wig. She stands naked and exposed, save for the bra and underwear.

 

Root uses a dirty T shirt and what's left in an old water bottle to clean up. She notices how her less than modest appearance makes Shaw shift uncomfortably. The woman's looking away, maybe to give Root some privacy, but the flush in her cheeks tell a different tale.

 

“I'm a soldier Root,” Shaw says, but now she's only talking to the sky. “It's who I am. Something the government trained me to be. Something I couldn't lose even if I tried.”

 

Root tosses the bloodied rag of a shirt in the trunk and fishes out a pair of jeans. “So being a marine makes you exempt?” she says, tugging at her pants and fastening the top button. “Where do I sign up?”

 

It's then that Shaw grants her with a sideways glance. Angry, annoyed, or simply just Shaw's face. Root's lost track of the micro expressions that embellish what kind of mood Shaw's in. But before Root can pull over her clean shirt, she catches Shaw's eyes wander. A fraction of a second later, they're front and center yet again and Shaw's kicking the gravel like she wants to kick herself.

 

“You'll never know what it means.” Shaw bites her lip and shakes her head. “And I don't expect you to.”

 

“What Shaw?” Root takes a step closer and leans in. She wants Shaw to look at her, acknowledge her presence in the same way Root placates Shaw's, push her away for fuck's sake. But Shaw remains stiff. Her eyes never leave the skyline on the other side of the bridge.

 

“You think I don't understand what it means to be what exactly?” Root reiterates. “To be a soldier? To be a martyr?” And Root can't take the way Shaw shakes her head again, biting the inside of her cheek and surprisingly her own tongue for once.

 

“To be a fucking thorn in my side,” Root grits through her teeth. She slams the trunk shut in one swift motion, ready to move on and be completely done with this obscure conversation.

 

“To be expendable.”

 

Root stops dead in her tracks. By the time she turns around, Shaw's already looking her way. Their eyes meet in the little distance between. Root's sadly responsive gaze to Shaw's noncommittal stare; they come together somewhere in the middle.

 

“Sameen,” Root sighs, “That isn't true,” is about all she can say. The rest is just a lump in her throat that refuses to move out of the way. There are so many words that Root's been saving, stowing for the right time. Only now, it feels as if the collection has sunk to the lowest reaches, weighing heavily on her sinking soul. She swallows down a great deal more and ignores the pang in her stomach when it falls.

 

“I'm okay with it,” Shaw says, like she's come to this grim conclusion a long time ago, long before their paths have ever crossed. “If it means others will live to fight another day.”

 

Between the skewed lines in her head; for Root to fight another day, for Root to go on and win the war that's ripped them apart. What she already knows, but will never admit to. That like Shaw, there are... were, more things she cares about. The list of which has always been confined and narrow, but growing ever since finding the Machine. The goodness that blossomed from it all however, withered away and collapsed after that fateful day at the stock exchange. Dissolving back to the scarcity it once was.

 

There is one thing that Root's never managed to shake away though, as much as she's tried. The woman that fills her empty heart with so much... that it spills over the brim. The woman that saved her life. The woman she would have died for. Root missed her chance then, and now she's resigned herself with killing for her instead.

 

“Shaw...”

 

“What is it Root?”

 

Root wavers the argument in her mind. A litany of reasons why Shaw is everything but a disposable asset, why Shaw's importance is sometimes unfathomable even to herself. But there is more work to be done and so little time. Root's already up to her neck in stolen minutes. Whatever she want's to say, the words have never fully formed into something coherent and tangible. The need constantly tugging makes her speechless in a way she's never known. What Root really wants to say, it will have to wait.

 

When she's finally torn the world apart, when she finds the answers in the blood and ruin, the words will come. Dying last words to a woman who will hear them this time.

 

For now, Root will ignore them. She'll push them back down and keep moving in hopes that they never catch up with her.

 

Batting away the tears glossing her eyes, Root smiles. “Take a rain check on that blaze of glory,” she says, through the undecided tremble of her lips. “I'm not finished yet.”

 

With that she takes her leave yet again, walking towards the first car with a regained sense of purpose.

 

 

“Hey!” Shaw calls out, and Root spares the glance over her shoulder. “I'm supposed to be the stubborn one, y'know!”

 

This time, Root smiles again, but with less sadness. She turns around fully without stopping or missing a beat in her stride.

 

“And I'm supposed to be the overly affectionate one,” Root replies and shrugs innocently. “Looks like we rubbed off on each other Shaw.”

 

Shaw's apparent eye roll can be seen from far away. The shorter woman dressed all in black stands alone and confounded, shrinking with the added distance.

 

Root's dousing the inside of the car with gasoline by the time Shaw finds her way back. Hands shoved into her pockets and silently spectating. Root tosses the empty can inside and wipes her hands dry on her jeans.

 

“Wanna do the honors?” Root offers, holding out a full book of matches to Shaw.

 

Shaw's hands remain as they are, deeply tucked into her coat. “I think you're more than capable of setting your own fires,” she replies.

 

“Suit yourself.”

 

Root strikes one and lets the flame catch the entire book. “More fun for me,” she says before tossing it through the open door. It's quick to ignite and in a matter of seconds, the whole car is lit up in a ball of fire.

 

They watch from the sidelines, standing still in a kind of awe as the car burns, as the black smoke billows high into the sky.

 

“We should go,” Shaw eventually says, her gaze is still entranced by the inferno.

 

“We?” Root swivels her stare and arches a brow to Shaw. “Are you offering to help?” she asks.

 

“Well,” Shaw sighs. “Someone's gotta make sure you don't do anything stupid...” she pauses for a moment before turning to Root. “Again.”

 

“Careful Shaw.” Root brushes away a bit of white ash that lands on the other woman's collar, and in the same turn, disregards the comment. “Your feelings are showing,” she teases as she sidles past.

 

Root's already in the other car and turning the engine over when the passenger side door opens. Shaw jumps in without so much as a word.

 

“To some people, stalking is considered a form of flattery.”

 

“Some people meaning only you,” Shaw replies.

 

“Look, whatever this is Shaw, it's very much appreciated, however, completely unnecessary,” Root says. But Shaw remains silent in her seat, starring indifferently out the window and pretending not to listen.

 

Root sighs irritatingly, the strong smell of gasoline invading her nose when she pinches the bridge. “Shaw.”

 

The other woman lets out a grunt of recognition.

 

“Get out.”

 

Shaw scoffs. “Make me,” she replies casually.

 

Root just curses under her breath as she shifts the car into gear, ignoring the way Shaw seems to be wriggling with small victory in her seat. She can have this one, Root thinks. Shaw's already wasted too much of her time anyway. Root's supposed to be fleeing the state, not making conversation with an apparition. When she finds a moment to stop and collect, a breather, maybe then she'll figure out a way to shake this ghost.

 

A few minutes later and she's reached the highway, gaining speed and putting more distance between her and the Capitol most likely swarming with police. Save for the sounds of tire tread on pavement and the hum of the engine, the drive is silent, almost uncomfortably so. Root steals the occasional glance towards her unwanted passenger, who's leaning against the window and starring off into the trees that line road.

 

“Was it worth it at least?” Shaw asks from out of nowhere. Root shifts in her seat and clutches the steering wheel just a bit harder, confused as to the exact meaning of the question. She looks to Shaw in a brief moment of hesitance, thinking of something else entirely before Shaw makes it a point to elaborate.

 

“The trouble you went to,” Shaw adds. “Don't tell me you didn't get the shit kicked outta you for nothing.”

 

Root sighs the smallest laugh and shakes her head. She could argue to save face but what difference would it make? Instead, she reaches underneath the collar of her shirt, past the padding of her bra and pulls out something gold and cylindrical. The tube of lipstick she presents, scratched and speckled in blood, it earns her an odd look from Shaw. That is, until Root uncaps the lid and reveals it's true purpose. A small usb drive sits where the makeup should be.

 

“I think so,” Root says, starring at the device as if she could see past the fabricated shell and to the circuitry hidden within. To the tangles of code just beckoning her to be unraveled. She imagines an intricate maze in her hands, the formidable path to tread and the daunting tasks that await her in the future. She thinks, but underneath it all, still _she hopes._

 

 

Long ago, Root used to pray, to hope for what she could not control. A young girl alone and whispering in her bedroom, to nothing and no one but the space between her lips and the ceiling slowly collapsing to crush her one day. For her mother to put down the bottle before it destroyed her... that the same car that took Hanna away all those years ago would just brought her home instead. All in wistful hindsight, all in vain.

 

She was alone and helpless, and it haunted her to a degree that became impossible avoid as the years of anger and regret began to build up. Her mother, she could not help. Her friend, she could not save. Another tombstone was added to the cemetery of Bishop, another soul given to the collection. Samantha Groves put flowers on two graves that day, one for her mother, one for her friend. Sadness no longer arrested her heart, but a thirst for vengeance instead took it's place.

 

And that same hope, Root still has. Dwindling in the farthest reaches of her mind. Thoughts of greatness in a world that's ever consumed by chaos and greed, and her own. A world that's seems to be losing the battle of evil. She knows that hope still lies somewhere in the tumultuous waves, fighting to stay afloat, reaching a single hand above the water. But hope is only a pipe dream without the means to act, to take a hold and save it from drowning.

 

“I know so,” Root says, to the horizon of the road ahead steadily coming to view with every second that goes by.

 

“Good,” Shaw nods and loosen up a bit, kicking her feet to rest comfortably on the dash. “Because as soon as your done with this little _rampage mode_ , you're going right back to the real mission.”

 

“And what might that be Shaw?” Root grins and glances briefly to the right. “Helping you with your social skills... or lack thereof?”

 

Shaw makes an odd sound through her nose. “Go fuck yourself,” she replies halfheartedly.

 

“You forgot to say please,” Root sing songs back.

 

“ _Please_ , like common courtesy will even be relevant if the _Evil Robot Nemesis_ destroys the world,” Shaw laughs.

 

Like reactive instinct, Root opens her mouth to correct Shaw, just as she's done several times in the past. How Samaritan is the farthest thing from a robot, but something else, another word Shaw's spoken, abruptly catches her instead.

 

 

“ _Nemesis..._ ” Root thinks it aloud, repeats it numerous times in her head hoping each try would finally stick. “Nemesis.”

 

And then something just clicks. Two pieces of a puzzle she failed to put together lock into place, and the small connection that had confounded her earlier reveals itself in a different light.

 

Root thinks of the hotel, “ _The Adrasteia,_ ” she whispers to herself, and the pinpricks rolling up her arms tell her she's onto something.

 

“You wanna go back and cut Barbie loose?” Shaw questions with confusion. “Well, you can't-”

 

But she doesn't hear Shaw. Root's too far away, busy with delving in the deepest recesses of her memory bank, to a time before. Before Samaritan came online, before she and her friends were forced into hiding behind false names and fake lives. Rewinding all the way to Harold and his re-purposed library, to the Faraday cage he had locked her in.

 

It wasn't nearly as terrible as the psychiatric ward, but just as lonely. The dusty old books kept her company during her stay. While she awaited the opportunity to perhaps prove her better intentions, Root humored Harold's suggestion and occupied her mind with the copious reading material she was surrounded with. In the evenings, Root would pace back and forth among the shelves. With her eyes closed, she'd run a single digit along the spine of every hardback, before stopping at a random book and pulling it from the wall.

 

One night, she had selected _The Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythology_ , a first edition published sometime in the late 1800's. She scoffed at first, never one to take interest in such things. But Root remembers holding it in her hands and marveling at the near perfect condition. She remembers now, the heavy weight of it, the texture of the pages as her thumb flipped through them, the distinct smell that wafted as they turned.

 

Root ended her grazing the same way she had started it, selecting a page at random to read. Of all the chapters, she had chosen the one entitled _The Story of Nemesis._

 

The divine spirit of retribution, Nemesis, also referred to as Adrasteia, represents the power which adjusts the balance of human affairs, awarding individuals the fate in which their actions deserve. Her most noteworthy work, punishing those who had succumb to hubris. But Root slammed the book shut and tossed it aside before even finishing it, still as skeptical as ever. That there was any such entity in control of fate, given reality, where good deeds go unnoticed and wrongdoings go unpunished. Herself being a prime example of her own theories.

 

Now, she is starting to wonder about a few things...

 

Why Betty, a woman uncannily similar in appearance to Root, was even summoned to DC? Why, of all the better hotels in the city, she booked a reservation at that particular one? And why room 508?

 

Was The Office of Special Council a coincidence as well? The building she was supposed to be in today was the very same one in which Root had also infiltrated almost two years ago under another guise, Miss May.

 

And even more so, why of all days, had Saunders done something so out of character and skip his morning meeting? The catalyst which had nearly killed her, Root will never know. But that same bone chilling wave creeps up on her again. And now Root debates whether or not to disregard it like before.

 

 

 

“Root!”

 

Shaw shrieks her name and Root snaps back into the moment, jerking the wheel just before the car completely veers off the road and into the guard rail. It's overcompensated and messy, but eventually Root regains control and manages to keep the vehicle within the white lines.

 

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Shaw yells after the turbulence settles.

 

Root sharply inhales and debates. “Sorry,” she exasperatedly replies, almost out of breath. Her heart still thumps wildly in her chest with the residual rush of adrenaline still coursing through her veins.

 

“You could have crashed,” Shaw chastises. “Where the hell did you go just now?” she asks... demands rather, and Root timidly readjusts her now clammy grip on the wheel. She remains unresponsive, intently starring at the road straight ahead and trying not to let her mind wander so recklessly as it did before.

 

“Hello?” Shaw waves a hand in front of Root's face, clearly unwilling to let it go.

 

But what is Root supposed to say? What could she say that wouldn't make her sound crazier than she already feels? In the same turn, none of it makes sense at all when she reconsiders. If Shaw really is just a projection of her subconscious, then it shouldn't matter anyway what she says to her. Root knows essentially she is only speaking to herself, yet, she feels just as guarded.

 

“Well, obviously it was nowhere near the road,” Shaw grumbles.

 

When Root eventually calms, she turns to Shaw warily. “Do you believe in signs?” she asks with slight trepidation in her voice.

 

“Like the one right there with the posted speed limit?” Shaw points out and Root just frowns, regretting ever asking in the first place.

 

“Personally... No, I don't believe in higher powers contacting me for specific reasons,” Shaw condescendingly adds. “And before you ask, I don't believe in coincidences either. They simply don't exist in our clandestine world.”

 

And Shaw's right to some extent. Things don't just perfectly fall into place, not in their line of work, at least not in their favor. When they do, it almost always means something greater, troublesome even. The ominous black cloud hanging overhead before a thunderstorm.

 

“Why?” Shaw turns to Root conspicuously. “Do you?”

 

“Depends on what you mean by higher power,” Root replies. “The Machine...” she pauses for a moment. Her throat goes dry simply uttering her name, but Root clears it and continues. “She would have me do certain things... things I thought were strange at first, but I did them. And sometimes I didn't understand... they made no sense at all and I used to ask her why? Why these little, insignificant things mattered. Why they were so important... And her response was always the same...”

 

“Shut up and stop asking dumb questions?” Shaw jokes, but Root doesn't seem to mind.

 

“There's a bigger picture to be seen. When the time is right, you will see it too. And sometimes... I did see it, parts of it at least.” She wonders if she was ever meant to see the rest. At this rate, it's highly unlikely. Root knows this, yet, she can't help the mad smile that cracks her lips.

 

“And then sometimes, I thought they were tests. Like she was mapping me out. To see what I would do... how I would act. If I'd make the right decision or the wrong one... or if I'd-”

 

The pang and twist in Root's side makes her stop, makes her shift uncomfortably in her seat and Shaw shifts with anticipation in hers.

 

“If you what?” Shaw asks with growing curiosity and Root just shakes her head.

 

_If I'd fall back into old patterns..._ Root thinks.  _If_ was no longer a question now. She had done the one thing The Machine wished against. Root returned to the place she vowed to never go again, reclaimed the person she once was, the person she promised would only exist in the past. And now, in some irrational part of her head, she thinks she's being punished for it. 

 

As far as the future is concerned though, Root isn't sure who she'll be then.

 

“It doesn't matter now, does it?” she sighs. “I trusted her. I believed in her and... when the time came, when I asked her to believe in me... she failed.”

 

She can still feel the knife in her back, from the day she disconnected and walked away. She felt it as soon as her lips finished the very last question she would ever ask The Machine.

 

_Would you even tell me if you knew... if you knew where Shaw was?_

 

That day scared Root. But there was a greater fear of her staying than there was of her leaving. To stay would mean to never know, and the better part of her couldn't live without knowing.

 

“I think it does matter,” Shaw begins. “A lot of people underestimate you Root. I mean, I did once...”  
Shaw admits and laughs humbly, but quickly thereafter, she hardens her state. “Never to be repeated by the way. But, I highly doubt your super computer God would make that same mistake.”

 

Root looks to Shaw with a narrowed gaze. As soon as she does though, Shaw points to the road in an eyes front motion that Root grudgingly heads.

 

“Maybe she already thought of this. Maybe the bigger picture involves you falling on your ass,” Shaw shrugs. “Maybe not. Who knows? Either way, I still think you're an idiot.”

 

Root rolls her eyes. “Look Shaw. If you're going to keep following me around like a lost little puppy...” and sadly, she's almost certain Shaw is, “Then at least try to be a bit more constructive with the criticism.”

 

“Ok Root.” Shaw smirks and bites the inside of her cheek. “How's this for constructive? Why don't you stop swerving like a jackass and stay in your god damn lane. The whole point is to get outta dodge without drawing anymore fucking attention to yourself.” Shaw smiles, “How was that?”

 

“Crass, but.. colorful.”

 

“By the way, your blinker's been on for like eight miles now.”

 

“Oh Shaw,” Root sighs. “What would I do without you?”

 

“I dunno,” she replies, stretching her legs and resting them back on the dashboard. “Probably crash and burn.”

 

Root smiles and thinks that she just might.

 

_Crash and burn._

 

And she should. And she probably will someday. If she's the modern example of hubris, then Nemesis or whomever can strike her down.

 

They can have her, but not just yet.

 


	6. No 'i' in Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaw accompanies Root to her safe house, and they quickly get on each others nerves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally stayed awake for over 24 hours writing this, sorry if it shows.

The moment they set foot inside of Root's safe house, as expected, Shaw makes a beeline for the kitchen. “Got anything to eat in here?” she asks, reaching for the handle of the refrigerator. Root's not really paying attention though, she's been so on edge since they turned off the last exit, for the last few miles until they reached this destination.

 

“That's a big _no_ ,” Shaw shakes her head when the light inside of the ice box clicks on and displays nothing but some really old Chinese take out and a bottle of ketchup. “Your fridge is sad.”

 

“I think there's some corn flakes or something in the cupboard,” Root waves her off, distractedly. The one thing she's been looking forward to is some quiet time alone with her computer and that flash drive. She's shaking with that kind of nervous anticipation, eager as she pulls the laptop from her bag and places it on the desk.

 

All the while, Shaw is opening and closing every single cabinet and drawer in the kitchen, loudly. Each time she slams one shut, Root cringes, her pulse jumps and her head throbs in the spot behind her eyes. It's like she can actually see the noise that Shaw's making. She rubs her temples as her computer starts up, praying that Shaw will run out of places to look soon.

 

“You literally have nothing edible in this...” Shaw pauses, standing in the kitchen and looking around the small studio with disgust slowly reaching her face as she comes to this conclusion. “Shit hole.”

 

Root looks around the room then, and for the first time she actually notices the not so decent condition of her apartment. There's questionable stains on the ceiling, on the walls where the ugly mauve wallpaper is sagging off, most likely in it's own despair. The entire place is pretty barren. The only furniture she owns is this desk, the lumpy brown couch, the coffee table which isn't really a coffee table at all. It's a large crate full of weapons which Root had stolen from an arms dealer a while back. And beyond all of that, behind the partition separating the “rooms”, a mattress she had thrown directly on the floor with a pillow and some sheets. All masked in the faint scent of mildew and god knows what else that Root had just gotten used to over time.

 

Nonetheless, this was her safe place, her base of operations. A low key apartment building located in a run down neighborhood somewhere in Brooklyn. The last place anyone would suspect her to be. If anything, the people looking for her, the ones she thinks might still be, have probably broadened their search far and wide, across the ocean maybe.

 

“It's _spartan_ ,” Root defensively says over her shoulder.

 

“It's disgusting, is what it is,” Shaw replies, shuffling around the room in wonder. “How do you live like this?”

 

“I just do,” Root mutters and focuses her attention back to the screen. Typing the first line of code into the blue box as Shaw undoubtedly gives herself the grand tour.

 

“Root,” she calls out moments later, and Root groans under her breath as her concentration is broken yet again. “What is this?”

 

Root turns in her seat and see's Shaw standing in the bedroom area, looking wide eyed and curious at the far wall behind the curtain. Root sighs a second later, pushes back in her seat and gets up, realizing then what Shaw is referring to.

 

On the wall near the window is a collage of photos and documents and maps, strung together in a web of red marker lines. Chaotic it would seem to anyone but Root. In a weird way it makes sense to her, helps her focus on all the leads and where they end. Something tangible to wrap her weary head around, when things feel like they're falling out of place.

 

Root stands next to her in silence as they both look towards the mess and clutter tacked to the plaster. Until Shaw lets out a little bought of laughter and Root eyes her, wondering what she's found to be so amusing.

 

“I knew you were obsessed with me,” Shaw points out, to the picture of herself hanging in the center of it all. “But this is an entirely new level of crazy even for you.”

 

An _obsession_... Root frowns at that. She's not obsessed with Shaw, if anything, she's obsessed with the task of finding her. If anything, she's diligent. As diligent as Shaw might have been about tracking her down after their first encounter.

 

Looking back to the wall, Root wonders if Shaw's right in the least bit. Wonders if it makes her so transparent. The mapped area of all the things she's done to get to this point. A proofed log of all the lies, the stealing, the killing... the evidence scattered chaotically in plain sight. The photos of people, some of which are crossed out with x's. People that are and were of interest to Root, key players in her campaign, people she's hoping to find in the future and people who have already outlived their purpose.

 

Root moves toward the wall and picks up the black marker on the floor nearby, uncapping it and scouring all the photos for a particular face. Root eventually finds the one she's looking for and puts an X through Carl Saunders. She crossed him out and felt nothing. Then, in his office, and even now as dragged two black lines through his face. And maybe she should feel something; guilt, remorse, or even some residual anger. It doesn't surprise her that she's numb, even to the bit of relief for making it out of there without dying.

 

She thinks she might feel less empty, more fulfilled, if and when she gets to circle the person who's most important, and cross out the person getting in the way. Maybe when she finally puts a bullet in Greer's head.

 

Recapping the pen, Root turns around. She forgot that Shaw was standing there, watching her intently. Shaw looks to her with scorn in her eyes, no longer finding any of this amusing. Shaw's not stupid, she knows what the x's are for. It's clear, the reason she's frowning in disapproval, abundantly so when she says to Root, “We don't kill people.”

 

_We_ , as in them, a team that Root is no longer part of. 

 

“That was _his_ rule,” Root says coldly, referring to Harold and his incessant moral guidelines. “Not mine,” she adds. And perhaps if she had realized this sooner they would never be in this mess. If he hadn't insisted on protecting the life that ended all of theirs. Greer wouldn't have gotten what he wanted, Samaritan wouldn't have come online, and Shaw would still be here. Or maybe it would have just prolonged the inevitable, who knows?

 

And maybe Shaw is thinking the same thing, recognizes the hindsight of it all. But it's still hindsight nonetheless. They couldn't go back in time and change things even if they wanted to.

 

Shaw glances over Root's shoulder, probably at all the x's that litter the wall. Either way, she refuses to look at Root any longer.

 

“You smell,” she says point blank, and it catches Root off guard. “Bad... Go take a fucking shower why don't you.” And Shaw ends it on that, sidling past the curtain and stomping through the living room leaving Root alone. She hears the click of the old tv coming to life, the sound of whistling and cheers and an announcer giving a play by play of what must be a sports game.

 

Root stands there for a moment, fiddling with the pen in her hand, trying to find ways she might get her point across. It would be a fruitless argument though, trying to justify all the damage she's caused. Like speaking against the sun, to a woman who only sees in black and white, to a woman who's only here in spirit anyway.

 

Shaw is slouched on the sofa with her feet kicked up on the coffee table crate, thoroughly fixated with what's on the fuzzy screen in front of her, so adamant with ignoring Root. And that's fine, Root thinks, trying to be indifferent just like Shaw is, but as she stares longer in her direction, she finds it even more difficult. Root becomes irritated by Shaw's presence, by the blaring television she chooses to acknowledge instead. That she'd rather invest in a game than attempt to tell Root off like she secretly wants to.

 

Root wishes Shaw would fight her, argue in the way that they always used to. Heated and close, close enough for Root to eventually get under her skin, and then and only then, Shaw would be allowed to retreat. But she resigns herself to the bathroom instead, slamming the door behind her, hard enough, she hopes it jostles the stupid tv right off the stand.

 

The florescent light flickers erratically before it remains constant, and then it's just Root and her reflection in the cracked mirror. Split diagonally down the middle, she sees two faces, two sides of herself. Good or evil, she's not sure anymore which one holds the majority, but given what she's been up to these last few months, she thinks the bad might be outweighing the good this time.

 

Root wonders if she was ever really good. A long time ago maybe, but everyone is innocent when they are young, blissfully ignorant. The moment she lost her friend, that was the moment she stopped being good. It was a stab to the heart that never healed, it just kept bleeding, until all the light she once had trickled out into darkness.

 

She sighs in a kind of _oh well_. Feeling helpless to do anything about it but continue along this path that she's chosen. The only option is to see it through, to give everything she's done some sort of meaning. And maybe then, she can rest.

 

Her nose crinkles when she finally gets a whiff of herself. Root tiredly laughs to ceiling, because even though Shaw was being mean, she was right. Root did stink. She hadn't had a proper shower in two days, and all the grime that had collected since then has stagnated to certain point, when Root does peel off her filthy clothes, she debates burning them above all else.

 

The water is scalding when she finally steps under the shower head. It burns her skin, but in a soothing way as it runs off her body, taking with it the dried blood and dirt she missed earlier. She stands under the stream, unproductively, for a while. Until the water spiraling into the drain goes clear, until it goes from hot, to lukewarm, and then to cold. Until she's freezing under the cascade and finally decides to quickly make work of some soap.

 

The room is still steamy when she gets out, shivering as she wraps a towel around her body. Going back to the sink, Root wipes some of the fog from the mirror and looks at herself again. Nothing has changed really. There's still dark circles under eyes, puffy with fatigue. She feels as tired as she looks, her body pleads more adamantly for rest, but she knows she wouldn't be able to sleep even if she tried. Sure, she'd lay down, stare at the ceiling for hours until her eyes could no longer stay open. As soon as they closed though, the nightmares would jolt her back awake. They were always the same. Always of Shaw... running for the red button and falling, while Root watched helplessly from a cage. Always.

 

Root's got a remedy for that though, something to keep her eyes open, keep the sleep and the nightmares at bay. The little orange pill, to which she pulls from a bottle in the medicine cabinet. She washes it down with some tap water from the faucet and waits for it to kick in.

 

Shaw is right where she left her on the couch.

 

“Thought you fell in,” she comments as Root walks past the tv in her towel. She goes straight for the duffle bag on the bed, picking out the cleanest clothes she can find. Some jeans and an old dark sweater, when Root slips them on, she notices how loosely they cling to her body. She pinches the slack between her fingers and frowns, wondering how much weight she's lost. Too much maybe, she thinks, as she pokes her ribs over the fabric, jutting out and more pronounced than she cared for. She stops pressing on her bones when she senses the pair of eyes spying on her.

 

Shaw has leaned forward in her seat, staring at Root past the curtain with a mixed expression, a storm of apprehension that doesn't shy even when Root catches her.

 

Root secretly resents that. She ignores Shaw altogether as she strides past and takes a seat at the desk. Opening the laptop once more, she feels that anxiousness from earlier rising again. She's not sure if the it's the pill starting to work it's way in or the excitement of plugging in that flash drive she's gone to great lengths to procure. Either way, her eyes are wide and her fingers are dancing across the keyboard in no time, and she feels electricity spark with every keystroke.

 

Time seems endless when she's doing what she loves, hacking. It's like her mind becomes fused to the circuit boards, like she's actually inside the computer manipulating the code. To most, this would seem tedious, but the drive is beautifully encrypted, elegantly so, and it reminds her of someone familiar. Someone who would spend such painstaking time and attention to detail to ensure it was more than perfect. Someone like Harold, Root thinks, if there was even such a person. She smiles when she runs into these clever obstacles, even more so when she finds the flaws and hurdles right over them.

 

It's so thrilling at first and for a while, that is, until she feels the gears within slowing down and losing momentum. And she runs into a string that baffles her over and over again to the point, she's jabbing the keyboard harder and groaning every time the error flashes across the screen. She stops then, rubs her eyes in frustration and tries to refocus. Resting her chin on her knuckles, scouring the code for some fault on her own part.

 

In this new stillness, the rest of the world comes into focus. The hum of the television static, the daylight now peaking through the windows, the streets outside buzzing with life in the early morning hours.

 

Root stands up and stretches her aching limbs, rubs the knots out of her stiff neck. She looks to the couch and finds it absent of Shaw. A sort of panic floods Root for a moment, and then a kind of relief. Thinking either Shaw was so mad at her that she left, or that Root's brain had finally stopped malfunctioning.

 

It's neither, she finds out. When the front door opens and Shaw enters, carrying a thick phone book in her hands. She slams it on the kitchen counter and Root flinches at the abrupt sound.

 

“What are you doing?” Root asks, tiredly pinching the bridge of her nose.

 

Shaw just hums, something that sounds pleasant as she flips through the phone book, running her finger along the lists, turning a page and repeating. Root wanders over in the meantime, looking over Shaw's shoulder as she searches.

 

“Ah,” she finally lets out, tapping her finger at something she likes. Root squints her eyes and reads the line above. It's the number for a restaurant, go figure. “They deliver breakfast,” Shaw tells her.

 

“I'm not hungry,” Root replies and walks away, back to laptop at her desk, readying herself for round two.

 

“You haven't eaten anything in over twenty-four hours,” Shaw says and quickly adds, “Not that I'm counting.”

 

“Sounds like you are,” Root bitterly responds, mostly looking at the screen rather than to her. It sounds like she cares, oddly, Shaw doesn't seem upset anymore. About the wall at least, Root finds out.

 

“Do you think you're a robot or something?” Shaw blurts out unexpectedly, and it draws Root's fickle attention away from her work, to the short woman standing in her kitchen, who looks like she wants to hit something. “Well do you?” she repeats, and for a moment Root thinks about saying, _I wish._

 

“Well, you're not,” Shaw points out before Root can say anything at all. “You are a human, Root, whether you like it or not. And _humans_ need to take care of themselves accordingly. That means exercising, bathing, sleeping, and back to the main topic of discussion... Eating!”

 

“Why do you care?” Root sneers. The words leave her mouth and she regrets them immediately, especially as this offended expression crosses Shaw's face soon thereafter. Biting her cheek like she's suppressing some very strong vocabulary on her tongue, Shaw rips the page right out of the book and storms over to Root. And for a second, Root thinks Shaw might actually make her eat it.

 

No, Shaw just slams the laptop shut in front of Root and hurls the piece of paper down on top of it. She jabs her finger at the listing again, hovering over Root with hell fire in her eyes, jaw clenched and gritting a fury suppressed. “Call this number. Or I will _make_ you. And trust me, you _do not_ want me to do that. Am I clear?”

 

Root doesn't know why she gulps, but she nods her head sheepishly and Shaw backs off enough for her to pull out her phone and dial the number.

 

Shaw's demeanor shifts in a matter of seconds, from anger to calm, and it utterly baffles Root. “Order the country breakfast,” Shaw says, nicely to her now as she flops back down on the couch. “It's like Texas in your mouth.”

 

 

Surprisingly, Shaw lets Root work while she eats. They sit together on the lumpy brown couch; Shaw watching television, Root with the computer in her lap, typing with one hand and picking at her breakfast with the other. Occasionally, Shaw glances to the food between them, making sure Root's actually making a dent in it. Satisfied when only a little less than half remains, Shaw takes the rest to the fridge and saves it for later.

 

It gives Root the energy to continue on the rest of the day. She migrates from place to place around the apartment with her laptop. From the couch, back to the desk, by the window, and finally to her bed, leaned with her back against some pillows and the computer resting in her lap.

 

Shaw stays busy the entire time between keeping an eye on Root. She pushes the couch against the wall and works out, she reads from a random book she finds in the apartment. Shaw even cracks open the weapons crate and cleans a few of Root's guns, muttering under her breath every now and then how Root needs to take better care of them too.

 

Root glances up from her lap every so often to see what Shaw's doing. From the bed, she sees her at the tv again, fiddling with the antenna and cursing because she can't quite get it to stay. Root leans her head against the wall and smiles to herself, closes her eyes for a moment. She snaps them open when she feels herself nodding off. Root shakes her head, she can't fall asleep yet, she's almost done with the encryption and time is of the essence.

 

Her bladder is yelling at her, so Root decides to make a quick trip to the bathroom. After she relieves herself, she washes her hands at the sink and splashes some cold water on her face. It helps her wake up a little, but it's not enough. So she opens the medicine cabinet for one of those orange pills, but to her surprise, the bottle has mysteriously vanished.

 

“Where are they?” Root indignantly asks as she quickly advances on Shaw, still tweaking the tv antenna.

 

“Where are what?” Shaw replies unconcerned and innocently, paying Root no mind.

 

Root raises her voice. “You know damn well Shaw!” she points accusingly, and it's then that the other woman stops what's she doing. Only, she counters Root simply with a look as if to say, _You've got some fucking nerve._ Daring Root to perhaps rethink the finger she's about to jab Shaw's chest with. 

 

“They're gone,” Shaw blatantly says and shrugs. “Get over it.”

 

Root just fumes. She becomes livid in a way that's unheard of for someone like her. Her head boiling in sheer astonishment, wondering who Shaw thinks she is, trying to control her like this. And suddenly Root feels so out of control, stepping to Shaw aggressively, because she can't fight the anger that's suddenly filling up inside and spilling over the brim.

 

“You had no right to do that!” she yells, towering over Shaw and finally jabbing that finger into her chest, and it feels so good, she does it again. Harder the next time, hoping to get some sort of reaction from Shaw, to make her just as angry as she feels right now. “No fucking right, do you hear me!” Root's screaming inches away from her face, and Shaw just stands there with her arms folded across her chest, unmoving, glaring directly into her eyes with no sign of ever retaliating.

 

Root exhausts all her expletives and then stands silently with her fist balled at her sides. She wishes that Shaw would have just punched her, broken a finger, or maybe head butted her... something. But Shaw is a stoic statue to Root's tantrum. Long minutes go by and neither of them move or speak.

 

“Are you done?” Shaw eventually asks, when Root's breathing becomes even and her heart stops racing. When the fists she kept clenched at her side relax, Shaw just says, “Good.” She disappears behind the bedroom curtain, leaving Root slack jawed for a moment before resurfacing with some boots in hand.

 

“Put these on,” she says, tossing them to Root. “We're going for a walk.”

 

“Shaw-” Root begins to protest, but she's interrupted.

 

“Root...” Shaw pauses, taking a deep breath as she tries hard not to roll her eyes. “Okay,” she huffs, “ _Please_ , go on a walk with me?”

 

Root looks up at the ceiling and sighs, smiling madly at nothing, before putting on her boots and jacket.

 

 

They walk together in silence. For a while. Neither of them look at one another, they keep their eyes front as they stroll down the sidewalk. Slowly, the anger leaves Root, dissipating from her hot head into the chilled air with every step until becomes something of the past, non existent. The adrenaline from it all had worn off a few blocks back, leaving her in calm, and still very tired state.

 

It's nearly dusk by the time they circle back to her apartment, and Root stops before the steps and turns to Shaw. She pushes her hands into the pockets of her jacket and looks down at her feet.

 

“I'm sorry,” Root says quietly. “I'm just-” she sighs, and finally lifts her head. “I'm not thinking straight right now.”

 

“Walking helps. And the fresh air too, I guess,” Shaw shrugs awkwardly and glances off to the side, huffing out a long breath that fogs in the cold. “I'm not trying to boss you around by the way, it's just that I-”

 

“I know,” Root says before she can finish, watching this relief wash over Shaw's face as she just nods in return. She doesn't need her to admit to anything. In the back of her mind, Root knows exactly what Shaw's doing, and it brings her comfort regardless of her own haste reaction to the manner in which Shaw goes about it.

 

Root drags herself up the steps with Shaw in tow. By the time they reach the third floor, Root's even more exhausted than before. They enter the apartment and Root shrugs out of her leather jacket and tosses it on the couch. She shuffles weakly to the bed and crawls on the mattress, closing her eyes as soon as her head hits the pillow.

 

She feels her boots being tugged off, and shortly thereafter a blanket covering her body. She groans into the pillow, “Sameen.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Will you sleep with me?” she mumbles, and it's an awkward silence from Shaw that follows. Root chuckles to herself. “That came out wrong.” She turns her head and peaks at Shaw though her heavy eyelids. “ _Next_ to me,” she corrects, “Will you sleep next to me?” 

 

“Okay,” Shaw sighs, slipping out of her boots. “But no touching.”

 

Root closes her eyes and smiles when she feels the bed springs shift, as she feels Shaw curl up beside her. “Not even a little spooning?” she jokes, smirking again when a groan escapes from the other side of the bed.

 

“Go to sleep Root,” Shaw tries to say sternly, but it comes out too half hearted and light. Root chuckles and Shaw gives up.

 

“Goodnight sweetie,” Root whispers, before she drifts off into a long awaited deep sleep.

 

 

 

The sound of the garbage truck outside stirs Root. Her eyes flutter open and they burn from the daylight pouring through the window. She rubs them, goes to sit up and finds that she can't. She can feel something weighing down on her left side. Root turns her head in that direction and peaks though one eye, smirking when she see's the top of Shaw's head resting on her shoulder. Fast asleep with an arm and a leg slung over Root's body, curling against her. Root wonders at what point during the night Shaw had turned over like this, and whether or not it was intentional.

 

Root's not complaining though, but she finds it amusing nonetheless, especially when she goes to get up. Shaw growls in her sleep and tightens the arm around Root's waist, keeping her in place. And Root can't help but laugh, perhaps too much. The quick rise and fall of her chest jostles Shaw from her sleep a little. She's just like a cat, Root thinks. Yawning as she stretches, and then finally letting out this adorable mewl when she nestles, probably unknowingly, back up to Root.

 

“So no touching huh?” Root grins, and she feels Shaw stiffen against her.

 

“God dammit,” Shaw mumbles under her breath, quickly letting go of Root and turning over to the other side of the bed.

 

Root sits up then and stretches her arms above her head. For the first time in a long time, she feels well rested, and it feels good. She can't remember the last time she slept all the way through without waking up in a panic from some nightmare. Maybe she has Shaw to thank for that.

 

Shaw, the little woman curled up into a tiny ball next to her.

 

“What time is it?” Root asks, trying to judge the type of light coming through the window before giving up and turning to Shaw.

 

“Too early,” Shaw grumbles, and Root rolls her eyes, reaching over Shaw to grab her wrist and bring her watch into view. It is early, six AM kind of early. Shaw's arm falls limp when Root lets go of it in favor of the sheet. She pulls off the half covering herself and sit up on her knees.

 

“You're such a great cuddler,” Root whispers into Shaw's ear, and leaps from the bed before she gets socked in the face for that.

 

“Ahhh, fuck you...” Root hears the woman mumble under her breath while she strides into the kitchen.

 

One thing Root does keep stocked in there, is coffee. She makes a pot and sets the computer up at the desk. Root sips from a mug and paces around the kitchen, thinking and thinking, trying to muster herself up for another go around. When everything finally settles, she feels determined as ever to crack that code.

 

What a difference a day makes, she thinks to herself. The path seems a lot clearer now. She flies through the encryption effortlessly now in the light of another day, leaping over obstacle after obstacle, getting closer to that finish line that seemed impossible to reach yesterday. The last line that she writes is flawless, and Root's never been more sure of anything when she hits enter. 

 

“ _Shaw_...” Root calls out, and she could almost cry as all the pages open up and blossom across the screen. “Shaw.” There's so much pouring out, so much information and Root hardly contain it alone. “Shaw!”

 

“What!” Shaw yells back, stomping into the room with wild look in her tired eyes. “What the hell is it Root!”

 

“Shaw...” and maybe Root's crying a little, mostly out of relief, tears of joy. She turns to Shaw with some hope still welling in her eyes, smiling from ear to ear. “I did it.”

 

“Oh...” Shaw scratches her head, silent for a moment. “Well... good for you,” she awkwardly finishes. Then she shuffles back to the bedroom and flops face first down on the mattress. “Wake me up when you find something we can use.”

 

And Root grins even wider at that.

 

_We... as in them... a team._

 

 

 


	7. A Four Letter Word

“ _The fuck?”_ Shaw bellows, right as Root grabs her by the collar without warning and snatches her off the sidewalk. Shaw grunts as her back hits the brick wall inside the nearby alley. Only, it's not so much an alley, more so a narrow unsealed gap between two tall buildings, but Root finds it convenient all the same.

 

“What the hell Root?”

 

Perhaps Root was too eager going about it. The look on Shaw's face when the air returns to her lungs is a mixture of anger and confusion, demanding of an explanation, and quick.

 

“We were almost made,” Root answers shortly, focusing just past Shaw's head and glancing down the busy streets far beyond. Underneath her, Shaw wriggles in discomfort, but Root presses her more firmly. “Wait,” she hushes. Shaw lets out a pained sigh and obliges. It's silent for a moment, apart from the sounds of the city around them this afternoon bustling with life.

 

That wavering sense of safety returns and Root believes they're in the clear for now.

 

“ _Root_...” Shaw growls her name from a low place deep in the back of her throat. Like a rattlesnake shaking it's tail in warning before it strikes. It draws Root's attention to another hazardous situation. She finds Shaw glaring at her through the shadows and it takes Root a moment before she realizes then why such a look is being given. From corralling Shaw against her will or simply crossing the boundary of her personal space, either or both, Root's in danger of being bit.

 

Close proximity would be an understatement, Root thinks, pressed to this woman who's always so adamant in maintaining distance. Root loosens the tight grip she has on Shaw's coat and the blood returns to her fingertips. She unknowingly lets them linger still, testing the wool of Shaw's lapel against her skin. It feels real.

 

And it feels like old times. Something akin to nostalgia creeps in sweet but sickening waves. Of crossing lines if only for the sake of protection. When Shaw became too hot headed for her own good, when Root thought she was impervious to bullets... they would keep each other in check. All those close calls of ducking for cover, away from gunfire or spying eyes, Root dreaded and savored them at the same time. They were excuses, dangerous ones albeit, to be closer if only for a second.

 

Shaw flattens against the brick wall, her face hardening like the stone at her back. She huffs out small sigh, a breath and Root swears she can see it form a cloud in the chilling air that quickly dissipates into the little space between them. Swears she can feel the press of Shaw's hands to her midsection. Whether they're there to keep her at bay or pull her in, it makes Root's head spin in all the wrong directions. A harsh reality in constant conflict with a tempting fantasy that Root finds herself falling into with more ease every passing day.

 

Thankfully, Shaw will always push her in the right direction. Or shove, rather. Root's back collides with wall on the opposite side, knocking the wind out of her and replacing it with some much needed sense.

 

“Ouch,” Root remarks impassively, in more ways than one. Unsure of what hurts more, her pride or the back of her head.

 

“See how you like it...” Shaw grumbles, patting the wrinkles Root made in her coat from holding on, exaggeratedly so, as if Root's hands were toxic. And maybe they are.

 

Root sighs to the wall above Shaw's head, contemplating these illusions, whether or not placating them like she's been doing will be her downfall. Shaw clears her throat, the sound further adds to the madness Root can't seem to escape.

 

“Was this part of the plan?” Shaw asks, and Root turns to her with a dozen possible answers, most of which sound insane. Shaw doesn't give Root the time to respond as such. “Hiding here? In this ass crack?”

 

Root rolls her eyes around the corner past Shaw, some hundred feet away, to the man standing in line at a cafe cart. They've been following him around Midtown for almost an hour now. So far he's led them nowhere.

 

“So, we gonna go kick this guy's ass or just stare at it for another hour?” Shaw asks blatantly and Root grins.

 

“I don't know what's more troublesome Shaw: your lack of patience or your new found obsession with asses,” Root teases, ignoring the scowl that Shaw gives her in response, choosing to watch the target instead.

 

Frederick Burke looks like every other Samaritan agent she's come across. Root wonders if their dark get up is part of some strict dress code, because black is all these people seem to wear. To Root, he sticks out like sore thumb, but to the casual observer, he looks like your average run of the mill businessman. The ordinary person wouldn't care to peer a little closer, they'd miss the flesh colored comm piece stuck in his ear, the protruding bulge of a pistol tucked into his suit jacket. That hour Shaw's complaining about, Root hasn't wasted it all. She's spent it keenly observing the enemy from the ground up and she's learned so much already.

 

“You're onto something though,” Root says, still peering down the sidewalk but now she's really just watching Shaw in her peripherals. Noticing the smug grin upturning the sides of Shaw's face, she adds “He does have a nice ass,” before it truly forms.

 

Shaw huffs in annoyance and turns around to join Root in her spectating.

 

“Come to think of it, he is kinda hot,” Shaw tells her. Root can hear the passive aggressiveness in her tone, see it in her eyes when she looks back. “Reminds me of Tomas a little, only...”

 

“Eviler?”

 

“Sexier.” Shaw grins, cocking her head to the side.

 

She's just pushing buttons, Root knows this and yet she still feels that same twitch of jealously from years ago. Listening in on Shaw's date with Tomas and becoming increasingly nauseated by every double entendre he threw out. Maybe because Shaw never responded so well to her own flirting. But Root remembers how that night ended: Shaw _not_ on a plane halfway to Barcelona.

 

 

The target finally gets his coffee and he's on the move again. Root takes this as a cue to come out of hiding, to exit the alley and leave Shaw with no satisfaction.

 

“Let's not forget why we're here sweetie,” Root says, trying to tame the wild smirk attacking her face as she leans in, “And who's ass you really care about.” She gives Shaw a little wink before she steps out onto the sidewalk, integrating effortlessly into the flow of pedestrians.

 

“I'd like to meet whoever showed you how to wink,” Shaw says when she finds her way back to Root's side. “And then strangle them.”

 

“Self taught.” Root flashes her a grin and shrugs. “Does the offer still stand?”

 

Shaw just bites the inside of her cheek and shakes her head. Her continued silence for the next couple of blocks is a surrendering white flag raised high in the air. Which Root is fine with, there are more important matters that call for her undivided focus.

 

Keep an eye on Burke, remain hidden, try not to die today.

 

“Let's just grab him already,” Shaw says eagerly, her impatience catching up with her sooner than Root expected.

 

“I already went over this with you,” Root sighs. “We don't make a move until he's out of sight from the cameras. And so far that hasn't happened yet.”

 

Shaw groans again and Root chooses to ignore it. She has to do this right, precisely so. Brute force simply won't cut it today, not with the enemy watching like a hawk overhead, from every angle it seems. If Root were to make a move now, Samaritan operatives would swarm in like killer bees. One agent, Root could handle. Two, sure. Maybe three. More than that would be a stretch. Even her imagination would find it difficult to fathom a successful outcome.

 

“This part of the city isn't exactly shadow map friendly,” Shaw adds, unhelpfully so.

 

“I'm aware.”

 

Root eyes the lens of a nearby camera wearily, stuck at an impasse of sorts. There's no guarantee that Burke would ever leave the protective confines of his all seeing boss. Maybe Root's wasting time waiting around for the right moment that might never happen. Maybe this is the only chance she'll get, striking in plain sight. In this mass of people, afterwards, she might be able to give them the slip, but it's risky. Root's not entirely sure hundreds of witnesses would deter Samaritan agents from engaging with her. Besides, it's hardly an appropriate arena for a gunfight, considering.

 

Root makes up her mind. “Singling him out would be better...” she's sure of it. “Unless you wanna take on an entire army today. Let me know, I can always run home and grab my tank.”

 

“Yeah yeah. I get it,” Shaw grumbles, kicking a piece of trash in her path, reminding Root how pouty she gets when there's no action. “Let's say he does go into a blind spot, some time this century, what then?”

 

The manner in which to strike would depend on a lot of variables, and it's hard to say for sure just what she'll do until reaches that bridge.

 

“I'll figure it out,” Root replies.

 

“Improvising isn't a plan Root,” Shaw criticizes.

 

“How hard could it be?”

 

Shaw scoffs. “You'd probably just hit him with a taser and be done with it.”

 

“Didn't bring Mr. Zappy with me today.” Root see's Shaw frown from the corner of her eye. For not packing the taser, or for calling it Mr. Zappy, she sure it's the latter though.

 

“Good. Those things are pieces of shit anyway.”

 

“Sure about that Shaw?” Root turns to her with a cleverly raised brow. “I seem to recall them working quite well those couple of times.” Shaw furrows bitterly at the hint, visibly sore about Root and the subject of electronic weapons.

 

“Any moron can operate one,” Shaw tells her spitefully. “Besides, they're boring.”

 

“Hmm,” Root nods. “And how would you propose I make things interesting?” and Shaw glances to Burke strolling well ahead of them, taking a moment to size him up.

 

“See how he's walking? He's favoring one side more than the other. There's a slight hitch in his step when his right foot kicks off. Lisfranc injury. Seen it a lot with soldiers accidentally tripping over foxholes. One good instep would immobilize him.”

 

“You know all that just by looking at him?” Root asks skeptically and Shaw hums in the affirmative. “Well, I think you read his file over my shoulder.”

 

“You calling me a liar?”

 

“Of course not,” Root grins, finding Shaw's sudden defensiveness amusing. “I'm only emphasizing that you have eyes and history of spying. That's all.”

 

“Okay. Maybe I peaked a little,” Shaw mumbles. “But I'm telling you, his kryponite's the right foot.”

 

Root shrugs. She would have gone with the Achilles metaphor, but that works too. She's about to say something else to Shaw, but when she sees the shorter woman's eyes narrowed and focused ahead, Root forgets it, snapping her attention back to the target who's about to enter the subway.

 

“Hope you at least brought your metro card today!”

 

They pick up the pace, and when Burke disappears down the steps leading underground, they run. By the time Root swipes her card through the turnstile, he's nowhere to be seen.

 

“You got eyes Shaw?” Root's frantically scanning her own across the herds of people whizzing by.

 

“Negative.”

 

“Wanna get on my shoulders for a better view?” Root jokes in spite of the turmoil growing inside of her. A sort of worry that has nothing to do with the murderous glare Shaw's beaming.

 

The trains won't arrive for another three minutes so he couldn't have gone far. In two minutes, Root's explored the entire platform and still, there's no sign of Burke.

 

“Fuck!” Root murmurs to herself, thinking she's just missed an opportunity that may never arise again. Shaw is standing on top of a bench, scanning over the seas of people like a subway life guard while Root goes into a silent panic. Until she realizes that there's one place left she hasn't searched.

 

The hallway leading to the men's restroom is taped off and labeled as 'Under Repair' with bold 'Do not Enter' signs all over the door, to which Root ignores. She removes the pistol tucked into the back of her pants and releases the safety before tip toeing inside.

 

White tiled, spacious and empty. Not a single sound to be heard save for a leaky faucet dripping somewhere and the intermittent clicking of a florescent bulb flickering above. It's almost eerie how still this room is compared to the chaos just outside the door.

 

Gun raised at the ready, Root cautiously checks each stall, tension coiling in anticipation. She could be wrong, Burke could not be in here at all. Root could be searching in vain, but when her ear picks up a distinct sound, she takes back that pessimism.

 

It's one of the most daunting things you could ever hear. A click behind the back of your head, the sound a gun makes when the hammer's cocked. Root's heard it far too many times before, yet it still has this blood draining effect.

 

“Drop it.” A male's voice tells her. Root's already over the fact that she's just been blindsided, the more important thing to worry about in this moment is what she's going to do about it. For now, she obliges him and tosses her gun away. It clatters and skids across the tiled floor and he asks, “Why are you following me?”

 

“Would you believe I thought this was the little girls room?” Root says, turning around to face the man foolish enough to point a gun at her. She eyes Burke up and down, grinning as she always does in the face of danger. “Looks like I wasn't mistaken after all.”

 

“Answer my question,” he demands, tightening his grip on the pistol that's shaking slightly in his hand. Enough for Root to notice at least.

 

He looks younger in person. A fresh faced rookie in Root's eyes and new to this game. Burke probably has no idea what he's got himself caught up in, does he? Who he's really working for... But that's of no concern to her. What matters is that he's the enemy, an obstacle in her path. A person in possession of something she wants.

 

“No,” she says indifferently, and he nearly gawks in confusion.

 

“No?”

 

“Do you know who I am?” Root asks, and this continued perplexity riddling his face affirms. “Well you should. Because I know all about you Freddy, and what a terrible mistake you've just made.”

 

“Oh yeah?” He scoffs defiantly, but there's a bit of trepidation behind it that Root revels in. “And what's that?”

 

Besides the fact he's naive for thinking that gun's going to protect him...

 

“Your safety's on.”

 

It's a complete lie, a distraction tactic with little odds of actually working. But even the most confident of people second guess themselves, as Burke demonstrates, taking his eyes off Root for that fraction of second in favor of checking the safety lever. That's his real mistake.

 

Root takes advantage of that short time. Quickly, she grabs his wrist extending the pistol with one hand and deflects it outwards, the other she uses to throw a punch. Her fist connects with the fragile tissue of his throat and at the same time, the gun goes off. It's suppressed but still very loud as the bullet whizzes just past her head, breaking the sound barrier. This all happens in a split second, after which Root hears ringing, the guttural sounds of him choking, the clatter of the pistol as it skitters across the floor. New noises that chime like bells of joy in her ears.

 

But if she's learned anything in life, it's not to celebrate too soon. Burke recovers in record time and comes speeding towards her. She dodges and jabs, but eventually catches a mean hook to temple that makes her see stars, and another to the stomach, knocking the wind right out of her. Doubling over involuntarily, through the black dots speckling her vision, she sees his right foot. Root thinks of Shaw when stomps on it, hard, with the heel of her boot, hoping to re-break that bone. As a result, he howls in pain, distracted long enough by it for Root to strike again. A knee to the groin followed by an elbow to the face and falls backwards.

 

“You know Freddy...” Root says when she catches her breath. “I was just gonna shoot out your kneecaps and be on my merry way. But on second thought...” He staggers to his feet once again and readies himself in a fighting stance. A resilient man indeed, Root will at least give him that. “Where's the fun in that?”

 

Root strikes first, letting him block a weak throw from her left just hit him harder with her right. She feels the bridge of his nose crack against her knuckles and doesn't wait for it to start gushing before grabbing either side of his head. She pulls Burke in level with her knee, hitting him square in the jaw. Root rains blow after blow down upon him until his face is a bloodied pulp, until there's no more space for him to stagger backwards. Eventually, Burke hits a wall and Root stops hitting him when he falls to the floor in a dazed heap.

 

“Do you feel it yet?” She asks, crouching down beside him. “That sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach?” The defeat or the regret... Root explores his eyes no longer wandering in a stupor, but looking to her own now with silent certainty. His lips tightly purse with an obvious intention of remaining that way and Root brushes it off. “You will,” she just says and goes about patting his pockets down for the one item that's brought her here in the first place. His cell phone.

 

It feels gloriously dangerous, like she's holding an unstable bomb in the palm of her hand. A direct link between Samaritan and it's operatives, this heavily encrypted cellular device will unlock the door to the enemy's line of communication. Root removes the battery and sim card as a precautionary measure and pockets it triumphantly.

 

Now there's only one item left on the agenda. Burke.

 

Root picks her gun up off the floor and stands over him. “The man who offered you this job...” she says, cocking back the hammer and raising the barrel to his chest, “You should have turned him down.”

 

Her finger barely begins to squeeze the trigger when the door opens.

 

“Root!” Shaw calls out to her. “Stop!”

 

But Root doesn't regard Shaw or her impeccable timing. She keeps her eyes fixed down the barrel, beyond the three dotted sights lining up just below Burke's eyes staring back.

 

“You got what you wanted Root. Don't do this,” Shaw tells her, with a calming ere of reason in her voice, like she's talking Root down from some sort of ledge. And why shouldn't she leap after coming this far? Why should she stop now? Burke's one of hundreds, if not thousands of operatives working for Samaritan: the enemy, the reason for all Root's pain and grief. One out of many, but one less to worry about if she pulls the trigger now.

 

She tightens her grip around the pistol and presses the barrel to his forehead. Burke winces and clenches his eyes shut for what's going to happen next.

 

“Root... please,” she hears Shaw say, closer now, Root can practically feel her breath ghosting the side of her cheek. Warm, like the hand that reaches out and covers the one balled into a fist at her side. “We don't kill people.”

 

But Root does, she kills people. In the past for personal gain, and now for another reason, another kind of need to satisfy her revenge. Root wonders about the end, in the future, when she's sated all the anger thrashing inside of her, if she would be fulfilled then. Or if all the faces she's crossed out on her wall will come back to haunt her, like all the other x's she's ever made in her life.

 

“ _We save them Root._ ”

 

Root's finger hesitates even more on the trigger. She'd be saving a lot of people by removing him from the equation. Further damning herself would be a small price to pay but... then again, when considering it rationally for once, who is she to make that call? Who is she to play judge, jury, and executioner? Who is she anyway?

 

Shaw is still pleading with her; with her eyes, with her grip around Root's hand, squeezing gently to pull Root away from this dark place that's steadily become her home.

 

“Do you feel it now?” She asks Burke, pressing the barrel against his head to keep it steady, because her hand wont stop trembling, because her arm burns with the weight of it and more. “Do you?” His eyes are pooled with tears when he looks to her, no longer angered by defeat but washed over with something that looks like guilt or remorse.

 

“Yes,” he quietly says. Root wonders if he means it, if he's telling the truth or if he's simply agreeing with her under duress. She doesn't know what to make of it exactly.

 

“You thought this job was a second chance? To start all over again?” He nods profusely, and Root goes on, “Well it wasn't.”

 

Unbelievably enough, she lowers the gun. “This is your second chance,” she says. He blinks a few times, like he can't believe what he's hearing, and to be honest, Root can't either. But she warns him all the same. “Use it wisely. Because if I ever see you again, I'll kill you.”

 

“Let's go.” Shaw's pulling her by the arm, hastily, like Root could change her mind. One moment, she's looking into Burke's pooling eyes, the next, she's looking out a window of a train speeding underground.

 

Shaw is standing across the row holding onto a hand rail, swaying as the car moves around the corners, and she's watching Root. For how long? It's unclear. But when their eyes meet, Shaw shifts her gaze elsewhere. Root can only guess what she's thinking, what kind of picture Shaw's painting of her.

 

“So now what?” Shaw shrugs.

 

Root pulls Burke's cell phone out her pocket and examines it. In her mind, she's planning. How she's going to reverse engineer this phone, compiling a list of tasks and supplies, sorting through and trying to figure out what the next step calls for. But Root can't seem to focus; her head is elsewhere outside of these priorities. And it's like Shaw knows what Root's thinking of, or who, rather.

 

“You made the right choice Root,” Shaw tells her, sounding confident in her assurances. Though, Root feels the exact opposite of assured. She feels as if she's made a big mistake, letting Burke go.

 

“Did I?”

 

What if Root's just further expanded his career with Samaritan? What if he goes on to hurt people... kill them? What if one day, Root's the one staring down the barrel of his gun?

 

“What if I made the wrong choice?” Root asks herself, wondering along down the line, if her question will be answered in some horribly ironic kind of way.

 

“Remember when I shot you?” Shaw asks, and Root looks up again, more puzzled than ever.

 

As if Root could forget. Her shoulder still gives her a hard time, especially on the cold days like today.

 

“I could have killed you, but I didn't.”

 

Root rolls her eyes skeptically. “Because you missed.”

 

Shaw frowns. “I never miss.”

 

“Right,” Root nods, grinning. “So you aimed a little more to the left of my heart because you knew that one day... you'd fall madly in love with me?”

 

Shaw shakes her head and says, “No,” in that obscure kind of way that had crushed Root's dreams all that time ago, when she thought Shaw passed up Tomas and Barcelona for her instead.

 

“Actually, Harold told me not to kill you,” Shaw says, plopping in the seat nearby.

 

In the back of her mind, Root had figured that at least. Harry and his nagging code of morals, his strictness to abide by them even after Root put him through utter hell.

 

“Honestly, I thought you were a lost cause. I thought he was an idiot for putting you up in that cushy hospital instead of letting you rot in prison max.”

 

“Gee. Thanks.”

 

“But you and I both know Finch isn't stupid.” Which is also nothing new. “He's a softy to an extent that's very frustrating, but he's also a great judge of character.”

 

“The Machine predicts the future, Shaw. Just because Harold created her, it doesn't mean he can too,” Root tells her. Things could have very well panned out differently; Root could have not reformed at all. In a parallel scenario, she could have come back and made Harold regret not allowing Shaw to kill her.

 

“You're right,” Shaw, astonishing enough, admits to her. “None of us could have known then what we know now. It's that whole, lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink, thing. And sure, the pony Finch bet on could have just been a stubborn ass and died of thirst... so why even bother?”

 

Root rubs her temple, her impatience growing along with this massive headache.

 

“Why Shaw?” she asks tiredly, because obviously, Shaw wants her to.

 

“I'll tell you why. Hope.”

 

“Hope?” Root scoffs.

 

Shaw deadpans. “Yeah, Root. _Hope_. That you'd stop acting like a psycho and help other people instead of just yourself. Why do you think he let you out of that cage? Why do you think he asked me to give you guns?”

 

“The Machine-”

 

“Nuh uh,” Shaw interjects and waves her off. “Don't you start with that played out excuse. He didn't stick his neck out for you because Robot Overlord told him to. That was all him. Despite your shitty track record, he believed in you. He took a risk knowing that you could easily fuck us all over.”

 

There is truth in this, Root knows. Harold wasn't exactly on board with The Machine at first, he was skeptical when it came to his creation taking on a mind of it's own. Skeptical when She chose Root to be Her analogue interface. The man always exercised his free will. The decisions he made were constructed from a variety of logic, morality, and this whole hearted faith in humanity. Suffice to say, Harold is no blind follower.

 

“Harold made the choice of giving you a choice. He gave you a second chance Root. And sometimes, that's all you can do. Give someone the option to do good and hope that it doesn't come back to bite you in the ass.”

 

Root thinks about it for a moment. She's tried before, to see through Harold's eyes. Look past all the bad code and find the good in people. After all, it's through that kind looking glass that she's here today. She could use herself as an example, an excuse to give meaning to that change of heart with Burke. But in the end, she knows herself. Who she really is despite Harold and The Machine's best efforts.

 

“I know... I understand and yet...” Root turns to Shaw, “I still wanna roll this train in reverse, go back and put a bullet in his head.”

 

And if Root were to be more truthful, sometimes what keeps her awake at night aren't the people she's killed, but the people she wishes she had.

 

Root smiles anyway, because it's all she can do for now. “Have anything insightful to say about that Shaw? Because I so love the sound of your voice.”

 

Shaw just shakes her head and scowls. “You've got some fucking issues, d'you know that? Which is a lot coming from a sociopath.”

 

The intercom announces the next stop and Root gets to her feet.

 

“Well, care to help me take my mind off them Shaw?” Root asks, and it's like Shaw finds something about that question just as daunting as Root's homicidal tendencies.

 

She lifts an eyebrow. “Dare I ask... How?”

 

“I need a few things...” Some items to help her break down this phone. “Don't worry sweetie, a little grand theft never hurt anybody,” Root replies in casual. Shaw's looks at her wryly, speechless for a moment.

 

“You realize that statement made absolutely no sense right?”

 

The doors open and Root steps off, throwing a 'you in or out?' look over her shoulder to Shaw still at an impasse in her seat.

 

“Fine!” Shaw throws her hands up and joins Root on the platform. “I'll help you shoplift from a Radio Shack or whatever.”

 

Root throws her another playful look, a dark and mischievous one that still makes Shaw gulp and turn wide eyed. Like the time in the CIA safe house, when Root held up a hood and zip ties and told Shaw what the package really was. It's the kind of look that says Root's about to do something stupid or risky, or both. And Shaw's never once liked it.

 

“You did mean shoplifting right? Not armed robbery or hijacking or anything?” Shaw hopes aloud.

 

Of course she did, but Shaw doesn't need to know that. It'd be a missed opportunity if Root didn't make her squirm a little.

 

“Root?”

 

Root pretends to be sheepishly innocent as she shrugs and walks away, further adding to the mystery nagging at Shaw.

 

“I swear to god Root,” Shaw calls out in tow, “There better not be hostages involved! Root! Fuck... wait up!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :)


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